PT Separatist fates post-ROTS?

Sifo-Dyas is a red herring. It's meant to be a thread that leads nowhere.

Jango Fett gives up the important fact when he says he was hired by a man named Tyranus. Then the audience, but not the Jedi in the movie, find out Count Dooku is Darth Tyranus. That's all you gotta know, the Sith are behind the army. And you know the Jedi are in big trouble.

Sifo-Dyas, even after the Clone Wars is a dead end. But the political situation with the separatists makes perfect sense in the movies on their own.

This is really for another thread, but the Clone Wars don't even tell us who ordered the Clones. We know that before the Phantom Menace Sifo-Dyas wanted to order an army and the Jedi said no. This make the Jedi accepting the army a bit more passable ten years later. But we don't know if Sifo-Dyas actually ordered them in person. It could have be Darth Sidous posing as Sifo-Dyas or Dooku possing as Sifo-Dyas. Maybe even a clawdite hired by Sidious. What we know for sure is the Sith have been in on army since the template for the the clones was chosen. That's in the movie.

 

What didn't make sense about it? The Kaminoans tell Obi-Wan that a Jedi Master named Sifo-Dyas ordered the army. Obi-Wan says to himself, "Wait a minute, didn't he die before that?" Furthermore, someone going under the name of Tyranus, not Sifo-Dyas, was the one who hired Jango Fett. All this is puzzling, but the Jedi seem unclear whether Sifo-Dyas did indeed die before the order could have been placed, and they have no way of identifying this mysterious Tyranus character one way or the other, so they accept the army under pressure. Butt then, at the end of the movie, it's revealed to the audience that Dooku is Tyranus, he's in league with Darth Sidious, and the break-out of war was all part of the Sith plot.

It couldn't be more clear that Dooku killed Sifo-Dyas and simply ordered the army under his name to mislead the Jedi into accepting it. Lucas may have had plans to reveal more about Sifo-Dyas in the next movie, but he obviously realized any further explanation was superfluous and would only take time away from more important matters.

e: As @Jedi_Sith_Smuggler_Droid notes above, The Clone Wars takes a seemingly gleeful delight in muddying the waters even further, but it's always been clear that Dooku was responsible for Sifo-Dyas's death and that the clone army was part of the Sith plot. Given the way those TCW episodes studiously fail to definitively explain anything beyond that, I don't think you can accuse Lucas of carelessness. Those details were clearly never meant to be explained. In the final episode of the arc, Dooku claims he worked with Sifo-Dyas in the beginning, and Obi-Wan responds by calling him a liar. There's (arguably) evidence to support both theories, but it's never settled, and either way it's pretty darn immaterial to the plot of the films. In the films, Sifo-Dyas is just a plot device to get the Jedi to accept the army.

 

Indeed.

That said, Sifo-Dyas may have been killed, and impersonated, at some point in the process: but he's more than just a fall guy - he was involved.

https://www.starwars.com/databank/sifo-dyas

After the other Jedi rejected his ideas and removed him from the council, he secretly contacted the Kaminoans and commissioned them to create a clone army, which he led the Kaminoans to believe was for the Republic. In doing so, Sifo-Dyas became an unwitting pawn of the Sith, who took over the project and hired the Pyke Syndicate to murder Sifo-Dyas on Oba Diah’s moon. A decade after Sifo-Dyas’ death, Obi-Wan Kenobi discovered the army he had commissioned, now ready for duty.

Databank info is "canon till some later source explicitly overrides it".

 

The Databank also says stuff like this:

An ancient and legendary Sith Lord, it was Darth Bane who saw that the Sith traditions of old were ultimately a dead end. All too often, squabbling Sith in their bid for power upended carefully laid plans. After the Sith were decimated by the Jedi Knights of a thousand years ago, Bane enacted the Sith rule of two: there would be only two active Sith at one time -- a Dark Lord to embody the power, and an apprentice to crave it. These Sith would operate in the shadows, favoring guile and conspiracy to bring down their opponents rather than brute force -- that is, until it was time to rise and subjugate the galaxy.

https://www.starwars.com/databank/darth-bane

Which is directly contradicted by what Lucas says here:

Everybody said, “Oh, well, there was a war between the Jedi and the Sith.” Well, that never happened. That’s just made up by fans or somebody. What really happened is, the Sith ruled the universe for a while, 2000 years ago. Each Sith has an apprentice, but the problem was, each Sith Lord got to be powerful. And the Sith Lords would try to kill each other because they all wanted to be the most powerful. So in the end they killed each other off, and there wasn’t anything left. So the idea is that when you have a Sith Lord, and he has an apprentice, the apprentice is always trying to recruit somebody to join him, because he’s not strong enough, usually, so that he can kill his master.

That’s why I call it a Rule of Two — there’s only two Sith Lords. There can’t be any more because they kill each other. They’re not smart enough to realize that if they do that, they’re going to wipe themselves out. Which is exactly what they did.

https://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-episode-i-the-phantom-menace-oral-history

I personally don't see the utility in quoting things the Databank says as "canon" when they're obviously just based on misunderstandings of what was established by the creator.

 

The franchise isn't Lucas's anymore though - even "misunderstandings" can end up being canonised by later works.

"The Sith once ruled the universe" is Lucas misunderstanding the difference between "universe" and "galaxy" after all. Not everything Lucas says can be read absolutely literally.


That the Jedi and the Sith warred for a while before the Sith "killed themselves off" is very firmly established in TCW, Rebels, and the new canon.

So, yeah, there was a war between them.

 

But it's an unnecessary complication. The narrative would be much simpler and clearer if Dooku had ordered the army under the name of Tyranus. The Kaminoans would easily mistake a Sith Lord for a Jedi Master, as you suggest. And nobody knows who this Tyranus is... until Sidious speaks his name in front of the audience.

 

It's there to throw off the Jedi. It's a Sith trick. Just like how the Sith tricked the separatists into leaving the Republic so they could be subjugated into the Empire later.

There is a thread for Sifo-Dyas topic where this is meant to be talked about.

 

But the Jedi would have no idea who Tyranus is, so they'd have no reason to trust the army.

The army is already presented with several questionable aspects, in order to build a sense of suspicion in the viewer. These questionable aspects have to be balanced out with compelling reasons for the Jedi to ultimately accept the army, so that the story can move forward. The fact that the army may have been ordered by a known Jedi Master is one such compelling reason. The story doesn't work without it.

 

And for me, "the army really was ordered by a known Jedi Master, who'd been manipulated"

is one of the best ways of making the rest of the Jedi look less incompetent.

 

I don't really care about what the Disney corporation arbitrarily deems "canon." I don't dispute that it's "canon" according to Disney. But I'm telling you that doesn't mean anything to me. If it contradicts the word of the original storyteller, arises in the first place as the result of a misunderstanding, and renders the larger story incoherent, why on earth should I give it any credence? What does this appeal to "canon" actually mean, in a substantive sense?

Would it make any sense to take Peter Jackson's movie interpretations and try to argue that they somehow apply to J.R.R. Tolkien's original stories? If not, then why are we expected to do the same in this situation?

Lucas often uses the word "universe" as a rhetorical flourish when discussing such things. I assure you George Lucas knows the difference between a galaxy and the entire universe. It's not remotely comparable to him directly and specifically addressing a common misunderstanding using easily understandable language. This won't fly.

I'm not disputing that the Jedi and Sith fought each other in the past. Lucas isn't either. When he says "that never happened," he's obviously referring specifically to the EU notion of a huge war between Jedi and Sith that resulted in the near-total annihilation of the Sith and left only Darth Bane standing. He's clearly and directly refuting that. He says the Sith wiped themselves out, and that it happened 2,000 years before the movies. Meanwhile, the movies refer to a war that took place 1,000 years ago, during the formation of the current Republic, which coincided with the presumed extinction of the Sith.

Put this all together, what do you get? A large Sith Order which came to rule the galaxy 2,000 years before the movies ("Once more the Sith will rule the galaxy!") but which quickly fell to infighting, leaving Darth Bane alone to continue on under the Rule of Two. This leaves a thousand year period in which all the fighting between the Jedi and the Sith referred to in The Clone Wars probably took place, with the Jedi contesting the Banite Sith for control of the galaxy. 1,000 years before the events of the movies, the Jedi came to believe the Banite Sith were destroyed. By the time of the The Phantom Menace, the Sith are discovered to have survived, and Yoda naturally surmises that the Rule of Two continues, because this is how the Sith operated for the entire time that the Jedi fought them in ages past.

This all makes complete sense and tracks with Lucas's statements and what is stated in all the canon material that he directly presided over. The alternative explanation requires that we completely disregard Lucas's statements and come up with convoluted retcons to explain how the Jedi could possibly know about the Rule of Two. Why exactly would we want to go with the nonsensical explanation that ignores the clear statements made by the guy who actually told the story in the first place? Because the corporation who currently owns the rights to the brand said so? I don't understand that.

I don't see how. Whether Dooku impersonated Sifo-Dyas or manipulated him into doing his bidding, what's the difference from the perspective of the Jedi? Either way, it looks like Sifo-Dyas may have ordered the army, and that's what they base their decision-making on.

 

Because 2 Sith vs 10,000-odd Jedi ought to be a complete kerbstomp.

The EU notion that, ever since Bane was left as the last Sith, he operated in secret, makes sense - which is probably why it got canonized. We know that at some point after Bane, the Jedi found out about him and his Rule of Two- but that doesn't require that the lone Bane (and his successors) openly warred with the Jedi.

As early as the TPM novelization, a point was made that the Baneite Sith are sneaky and stealthy. That doesn't mesh with an open war.

In the newcanon, Cassian Andor was one such Former Separatist Who Joined The Rebels.

 

Because film is a visual medium, show, don't tell.
As for what Padme says, Mace, in his meeting with Palpatine suggest that the seps could get violent and attack the republic, even if there is no republic army.
Plus the seps have already caused problems and disrupted the peace so badly that the Jedi can't really keep up.
So the seps are not painted as very peaceful.

Nonsense!
A very simple way existed.
Take the scene with Mace and the Jedi in Palpatine's office that is followed by Padme entering.
Have it be the same with Mace and the Jedi, then Padme enters with some senators. Yoda greets her, there is talk about her safety and she asks Mace who tried to kill her and he mentions Naboo miners.
Padme looks unconvinced but before she says anything, the buzzer sounds, announcing Dooku and some representatives from the seps parliament. They are here for some more negotiations.
Dooku and the others enters and Dooku is all smiles and friendly, he greet his old Jedi friends and says hello to Padme. One of the people with him express his outrage and shock that someone would try to kill Senator Amidala, an advocate for peace and someone that the seps trust and that she listens to them.
Then the Jedi leave and the scene ends.

This does several things, one we don't have to wait half the movie before meeting Dooku. If he is a villain or not is less obvious, making for a bigger surprise later.
We get some faces on the seps and see that they are not all the TF and co.

I think you are the one who is confused, what brought me into this thread is this comment of yours;

And I explained that these actual separatists don't feature much in the films.
We never see them, if they have a parliament is never shown, mentioned or even hinted at.
What IS shown are the TF, CG, BK and TU. Greedy merchants.
So it is not strange that people watching the films and don't read loads of books or watch some TV series, that hadn't been made when AotC was shown in cinemas, would come away with the impression that the seps mostly consisted of greedy merchants. Because that is what the films show us.

As for AotC making sense.
It isn't like the film is hard to follow, I get why stuff happens. The plot needs it.
My issue is some of times there is no good in-character or in-universe reason for why It is just, the plot needs it. In other words, the execution is sometimes lacking.
Like why does Padme accuse Dooku of trying to murder her?
She gives no reason and based on what she would know, Dooku would be the last person to want her dead. But she has to say this because we don't see Dooku until about halfway through the film so we need to shove his name in here. Clumsy exposition to me. Plus it makes it more obvious that Dooku is bad guy and when we finally see him, we see that he is indeed a bad guy. So little surprise there.

Simplicity itself, raise their prices.
If the TF control a majority or all the trade in the republic, they can just raise their prices and make as much profit as before.
And if their customers complain, blame the senate and their new tax.

But based on TPM, this tax seemed a new thing, so what is this new expense that the senate needs to pay for?

Not necessarily, if the seps make their own clone army, because they fear the droid armies of the TF and co. And they attack.
The TF and co come to the aid of the republic, both thinking this would make them look like the good guys and when they have won the war, the senate would be very grateful and do what they wanted.
Also, say 70% of their business is in what is still the Republic and the seps hate them so they know that they would be screwed if the seps win. Plus they figure that they can take some of the prizes in the seps worlds once they have won.
But the clone prove vastly superior to the droids and the republic is pushed back.
And the TF and others use their armies as independent armies and not together. So Palpatine suggest that the various armies be unified under the senate/Jedi, which is more effective and makes sense.
So they do.
Later, Palpatine begins to trying to "nationalize" the various industries in order to help fight the war.
The TF and co agree, because they think that Palpatine is their kind of guy, that they have figured him out.
Of course they are wrong and by then, Palpatine has the army and loads of resources under his control.

First, speaking for myself, that the clones would betray the Jedi was so obvious in AotC that it reduced the drama and shock of that scene in RotS. I was basically just waiting for the other shoe to drop. "When is it going to happen? Is it now? Get on with it. Oh finally, I thought we would never get there."

Second, you don't need the order 66 scene. Say the war has decimated the Jedi and now less than 1000 are left. And if the Jedi act against Palpatine, like in the film, and Palpatine has it on film and shows the senate that the Jedi tried to kill him and they must be arrested and brought to trial.
He sends Anakin to deal with the temple and sends out an order for the arrest of all Jedi. Some resist and are killed. Some give up but instead of a trial, they are secretly shot.
Palpatine could even a few mock-trials to prove that he is fair and that the Jedi are the bad guys.

Lastly, if really want clones. If the seps clones prove so effective, the senate decide that they should get their own clone army, in violation of their slavery laws.

As for the Jedi, if the senate ordered them to, I think they would work with the TF. esp to defend the republic.

Well in TPM, Palpatine said that they would have to accept TF control over Naboo.
So how can he become chancellor? Wouldn't his place be part of the TF now?
Or at the very least, the TF would get to decide who the senator is.

I don't think they would need all that much arming up.
Take the TF forces over Naboo at the start of TPM. The fleet and their army.
Could the Jedi alone defeat that?
Do the Jedi have battle ships? Loads of fighters?
We see in AotC that when massively outnumbered, the jedi are cut down by droids.

And really, what the TF did in TPM, that should have been more of a wake-up call for the senate.
The republic has no army, no soldiers. But there are a lot of private armies that are not answerable to the senate. And they have just seen one of the big companies abuse that power.
So the army bill would make sense as being a way for the republic/senate to not have to bow to the wishes of the TF and others.

As for the TF and co expecting an easy win. Yes very much agree.
They are cowards and likely thought that this would be a very one-sided fight.
They would overwhelm the jedi in short order and reap the profit.
The war, if it would even be that, would be over in days or weeks.

What is interesting is that after Geonosis, the seps and those that would want to join them for the above reasons. they would see that the republic is nowhere near as weak as they thought.
And the easy victory is anything but and they got handed a crushing defeat instead.
Based on their lack of bravery, I would think that some of them would reconsider and even switch sides to the republic or simply surrender

This is because these "regular" people are never shown. So we don't know what he said to them.
What we do know is that with the TF and others, the seps grow at least ten times in size.
So these "regular" people, if they factor in any way, it is likely very small.
And based on what Dooku said in his meeting in AotC, he expected more systems to join once the TF and others had sided with him. Possibly after he had used his big army against the jedi and made demands on the senate.
So they would join either to be on the winning side, ie out of fear or out of greed, that now they can demand any concessions of the senate/republic and be rich.

As I said to The_Phantom_Calamari,
These "regular" planets that just want to leave, we never see the,
We don't know if it is real movement or they are just doing this because Dooku told them to.
The TF in TPM come across as little more than puppets of the sith, No sith and the TF would never act.
To me, the seps come across much the same way. Puppets of the sith.
If there was a genuine movement or just sith stooges.
I have said before that I think TPM could have established some of the seed of the seps movement and AotC could build on that.
As it is, the seps come right out of nowhere and we never see them or know anything much about them.
Beyond the TF and co.

How long has this seps movement been going on? We don't know.
There was no hint of it in TPM.
We do know that Dooku has been planing this new droid army and talking to the TF and co for a while.
So was there a legit seps movement that just wanted to leave or was their plan always to build up a big droid army, crush the jedi and extort what they want from the senate.

Bye for now.
Old Stoneface

 

That's the thing with taxes, they just go up and up. So the Trade Federation didn't want to pay the new taxes. My guess is they were let off the hook for Naboo but not for the new taxes.

It doesn't always work that way. And what if the senate raises taxes again and again? How much can the Trade Federation raise rates. But they shouldn't have to raise rates. How is it their fault the Senate can't manage it's finances? Why do they have to foot the bill for an inept government? It's always the rich and the businessman that have to pay. Government wants to punish those who are successful. It's un-Galactic is what it is. Why the Trade Federation started out as an ant hill for alien worm dudes. And now it's a federation of trade. And what's the republic give them? The Trade Federation has it's own army of robots for security, the Republic isn't doing that? The Republic isn't paying for security.

I'm 98% sure you're pulling my leg here. If not I'd say.....

WHAT? So if the TF and other companies come to the aid of the republic and the Republic is grateful, why do they make Palpatine Emperor and not the Trade Federation? Palpatine needs to be peerless as the only leader of the Republic and the only one who can bring order back to the galaxy. Also it takes 10 years to grow a Clone Army. A Sith Lord can do that in secret, but how is a group of free planets going to collaboratively do that and keep it secret for 10 years? A big part of the plan is having one army appear as if from thin air.

Why would Plapy want to share some the prizes after the war? He needs to weaken all the big companies to the point of collapse.

The he's our guy thing doesn't really work for me. And you're saying the different companies don't have overrides in their own armies so Palpatine can't Order 66 them. The Clone are 100% loyal to Palpatine because he is the one who paid for them and set them up. Not sure he could do the same thing with a dozen borrowed robot armies. We do see Anakin shut down all the droids at war's end. But that's another thing. You can't shut down the clones. The droid would have fight until they were all gone. The droid side can end at the click of a button. But my guess is it only got to that point by wars end.

The Trade Federation wasn't removing Naboo from the Republic. They were occupying them yes, but the free Naboo front would still be a big thing and Palpatine would be representing the people there. If the planet leaves of it's own free while. If the people vote to leave, who is Palpatine representing? In the US Civil War the conferate states didn't still have senators voting on US laws.

I think the Sepertists would arm up a little bit before the war as postering. It gets the assembly lines moving. The supply lines set up. The infrastructure. It's showing they are ready to go the long haul. It's to intimidate the Republic. So even if the Republic decided to arm up it would be too late, because the other side is way head of them. They are already cranking out new droids to replace the ones that haven't been used yet, and the Republic is really short on Jedi.

What happened on Naboo should have been a wakeup call. My guess is the Trade Federation couldn't commit those troops long term. They were needed in other places. That's why only one ship is left when the Queen returns. The Trade Federation can take over one planet, but then their fleet needs to get back to work.

Because they couldn't commit long term, it was probably easier for the government to dismiss after the fact. Also Naboo won the war and repelled the Trade Federation. Now they barely pulled that off, but the galaxy at large won't know how close it was. Why fix what is broken? The system works because Naboo repelled the invaders.

I think some of the sepertists would have gotten cold feet after Geonosis. But with somethings in life there are no do overs. This is one of those in for a penny in for a pound deals. The Trade Federation got a slap on the wrist for Naboo. The Republic is not going to do the same thing for open revolution against the Republic. There would be consequences. More regulation. More taxes. More rule and more limits that companies don't want to be under. And the war is just starting. And they just started arming up. Surely they will win the war. But with each passing day the situation gets worse and worse for the Sepertist Companies, but it's too late and it happens in steps.

So in the end their lack of bravery is not enough to overcome their greed. And greed is why the Sepertists don't immediately surrender and stop the war when they see it will be a real fight. And I'm sure Dooku offered to share the prizes with them.

I think the armies or military might of the sepertists grow ten times in size. The regular people are providing the planets and territory that will be the new Sepertist government. Those will be the citizens who are governed.

Great questions.

 

We know this is not the case because it's a silly thing to assume. Why would thousands of systems secede from the Republic for no other reason than because Count Dooku told them to? It really does not take any guesswork or large leaps of logic to conclude that the Separatists are seceding from the Republic because of political differences relating to its dysfunctional nature as established in the last movie. Count Dooku is described as a "political idealist" by Ki-Adi-Mundi, and that's our operating assumption for most of the movie. Even when Count Dooku captures Obi-Wan and reveals what he's capable of, our only indication is that he's doing it all because he's discovered that the Senate is controlled by a Sith Lord, and his quest to destroy the Sith has corrupted him. We don't know Count Dooku has any other ulterior motives until the very end of the movie, and by that time it's totally obvious that Dooku is deceiving and taking advantage of the Separatists the exact same way Palpatine is deceiving and taking advantage of the Republic.

 

Aren't the Geonosians non-corporate Separatists? It doesn't seem like they are a corporate entity.

 

The Geonosians are the ones with the droid foundries. I think they're more like a planetary government with a nationalized industry. Either way, they're profiting off the war by having the commerce guilds buy their battle droids to supply the Separatists with an army.

 

Yeah, they definitely have an organized civilization. I just assumed they used their industrial sector to make the droids that were designed by the Trade Federation, etc. Basically volunteering to be the Separatist world that housed the first corporate armies. I guess those factories were used by the Geonosians before the Separatist Movement to make goods instead of war machines or they were installed by the corporations specifically for that purpose.

I'm not sure if they were the original droid makers and sold them to the Trade Federation as a private army.

EDIT: Well I guess according to Wookiepedia, the B1 Battle Droid was a Geonosian design from the beginning.

 

Even going by just the movies, the battle droids are clearly made in the image of the Geonosians, implying that the Geonosians are the original designers and producers of them. The Trade Federation and other commerce guilds all maintain their own private droid armies, presumably all supplied by the Geonosians:

"Good. Our friends from the Trade Federation have pledged their support, and when their battle droids are combined with yours, we shall have an army greater than any in the galaxy." -- Count Dooku, addressing the assembled commerce guild leaders in Attack of the Clones

As we see, the factories of the Geonosians have been steadily pumping out battle droids in preparation for the coming offensive. This means big bucks for the Geonosians, and even bigger bucks when their primary customers achieve their goal of total, unregulated economic dominance of the galaxy.

 

Not necessarily, in my country the overall tax-level was higher in the 70's than it is now.
Granted, back then you had extreme situations where you could pay more than 100% in tax.
So for the last 20 or so years, taxes have gone down overall.
These days, a fair amount of politicians are not that focused on lowering taxes anymore and there is talk of possibly raising some taxes.

Governments want to punish those that are successful?
Paying taxes is a punishment?

Look at the US currently and the big tax cut that Trump did. Who benefits mostly from that?
Rich people and big companies. Average Joe and Jane not so much.

In my experience, rich people and big companies are often quite good at NOT paying taxes.
There have been several examples over the last ten years in my country where rich people and big companies have tried to pay as little tax as possible.
Putting money off-shore, in countries with low taxes, making out fake loans, moving money between companies and so on.
Some of these are illegal but some are more about exploiting loopholes in tax-laws.

The people that almost always have to pay taxes are the regular people. They are ones who often have to pay the bill when banks and speculators get too reckless and the economy crashes.
Take the big crash in 2007/2008. How many of the people in the banks and big companies behind that mess got hurt or had to pay a lot? Not many, the people that had to pay where the regular taxpayers.

How do you know that the senate can't manage it's finances? Is there anything in TPM that suggest that the Senate is broke?
The senate is corrupt and some senators are in the pocket of the TF and other big companies.
Not unlike real life.
We don't know why there is this new trade tax or what, if anything, it was supposed to pay for.

The TF have an army yes, battle hardened even. The republic does not.
Is it because of piracy? the films don't mention pirates as a problem.

I don't follow the EU but I have heard various EU explanations, some might not be canon anymore.
Trade to the outer systems was almost non-existent so the senate made a deal with the TF, get rid of the trade tax to the outer systems in exchange for the TF starting to trade there.
Done and done. All was well.
Why this tax came about, I heard different explanations, some say that it was in fact an army tax. The TF had built up an army and armed their ships and so the senate decided to tax them for that.
Other says that the senate just reneged on their deal and put the tax back once trade was booming.

I am being quite serious, no joke.
I simply think it was perfectly possible to do a version of the PT where the seps are the ones with the clones and the big companies side with the Republic.
Based on the ANH novel, the big companies where on the side of the republic and was a major reason why the empire came about.

Why Palpatine and not the TF?
The TF isn't the only big company, say that there are 8-10 such big companies.
And they are businessmen but also rivals. So they don't much like each other.
So none of the other companies would stand for Nute becoming emperor.
But they all trust Palpatine and figure they can deal with him.
So is playing the part of a person that can be all things to every person.

Who says that a clone MUST take ten years to grow. This is SF, you can have any time-frame you want.
Some SF have clones be ready after just days or weeks so anything is possible.
And who says that the seps having a clone army must be secret?
The various plants that want to leave have no big army themselves. And they know that the TF and co have big armies and could use them against them
So they decide to arm up in order to not risk getting crushed by some of the corporate armies.
So their clone army is known but the explanation is self-defense. They can even point to the Naboo situation where the TF acted like massive bullies and attacked a weak world.
They didn't plan to attack but war breaks out anyway and they go on the offensive.

Not difficult.
Say the war starts and the TF and others side with the republic as that is where a majority of their business is and they spent a lot of money getting the senate in their pocket. Plus the seps hate them.
So they fight but because they don't trust each other and don't coordinate their forces. The war goes badly.
So Palpatine suggest that their armies would be unified under Jedi/senate control.
It makes sense and so they agree.
And now the war begins to turn around.
So Palpatine looks pretty good here.
Then as the war goes on and the cost goes up, Palpatine begins to "nationalize" some of the industry, like ship yards and the like.
So he gathers more and more power to him and to the senate he says that this is just temporary and he says the same to the TF and co.
With the war over, he summons the leader of the TF and other companies to a meeting.
They go because they figure he would now be giving back control of their forces and resources plus a big reward for their help.
But Palpatine instead kills them all.
And you could even make it look like the Jedi did this in order to make the people doubt them.

One example, "I Claudius" The main character is underestimated by his family and most powerful people in Rome. They see him as a cripple and a stuttering simpleton.
And he plays that part well so he survives a very murderous time.
And he does become emperor, first as a joke but he proves to be fairly capable.
So having Palpatine present himself as a person that others can work and feel they can in some measure control but he instead controls and in the end destroys them. I can see this working.

As for the armies.
The droids are just the start. Palpatine unifies the droid armies but also begins to build a regular republic military with human officers and the like. They would later become the imperial officers.
Which is a bit odd in RotS, we see Tarkin and imperial officers at the end but during the war, the republic army was just clones and Jedi. We never saw any human officers among them.
But anyway, the droids are used as cannon-fodder and they work well as that. But a real army is built up, you could have it be supplement by clones as they have prove superior to droids.
So at the end of the war, the droid portion is smaller than at the start. And you have human officers that are loyal to Palpatine/senate not the TF. And you have clones.

When the war is all but over, as I said, Palpatine kills all the big coporate leaders, frames the Jedi, shuts down the droid armies and presents images showing the Jedi trying to kill him.
He gets rid of his rivals, he has an army that is loyal to him and he frames the jedi as traitors trying to take over the republic.

The original plan was for Padme to sign some treaty, making the TF control over Naboo legal.
So to all appearances, the Naboo people asked for the TF to come in an take over.
So Palpatine can't really claim to speak for them.
It seems that the queen of Naboo elects the senators. So the Tf could force Padme to recall Palpatine's role as senator and instead the TF put one of their mouthpieces there.

Some time ago, one person here claimed that the seps did have representatives in the senate during the war. I don't know what EU that came from or if it canon now.

Long-term? We are talking about a matter of days, 1-2 weeks at most, between the invasion and Padme going back.
What were they needed for? Nothing in the film suggest that the TF is doing something else.
It would have been nice if that was in there as then the sudden disappearance of the TF fleet would have some explanation instead of being gone for the sake of plot.

Also the TF already control a lot of systems. The only system they could reach in TPM, that wasn't udner TF control, was Tatooine.

TPM showed how incredibly broken the system was.
A military power can blockade a world just to extort the senate into giving them what they want.
And the senate can't resolve it.
They can even invade and take over and try planetary scale genocide.
And the senate not only does not act, it even refuses to believe it even happened and makes itself leaderless instead.

To anyone with a modicum of intelligence, the TPM situation would be a big red warning sign that things are really bad.

No, even the number of systems grow massively.
Dooku says that with the TF and some other group's support, 10 000 more will join them.
So AotC is pretty clear, with the TF, BC, CG and TU, the seps become much bigger.
And we know from TPM that the TF controls lots of systems so they could just be told to obey.

EDIT: I might have made a mistake, in the script, the crawl says several hundred systems wanting to leave but the film says several thousand instead. So the script had the seps start out as much smaller.

That Dooku was a bad guy and up to no good was blindingly obvious from very early in the film.
And no I didn't read spoilers, unless you call watching a trailer a spoiler.
Yes, I did know that Christopher Lee was in the film and his character was called Count Dooku.
So an actor best know for playing bad guys and his characters sounds a lot like Count Dracula.
And the trailer showed him using a red lighsabre, a sith weapon.

Even leaving that aside, the opening crawl makes him sound up to no good.
For that matter, why is he called "Mysterious"?
He is a former Jedi and apparently a known "Political idealist".
So what is so mysterious about him? People know who he is and his background.
Call him "Former Jedi" instead.

And then Padme accuses him of trying to murder her, making him seem even more fishy.
Then when we finally see him, we learn that he was indeed behind the attempt on Padme, big shock.
We also learn that he has been building up an army for some time and intends to use it against the republic, who has no army apart from the Jedi. All the while negotiating with the republic.
That the republic was considering getting an army was known, the seps are was not.
So his actions are not those of a "political idealist."

So all his talk with Obi-Wan came across as totally fake. We know that he was up to no good and he lied about Jango. The scene was just Dooku yanking Obi-Wan's chain and to me, a pale imitation of the scene in ESB, where Vader offers Luke to join him.

What do the seps want? Dooku mentions demands but not what those are.
Why did those "regular" seps want to leave?
Not answered because we never see them and know next to nothing about them.
Do those "regular" seps want to become independent systems or form some new form of political system?
I don't think AotC says that either.
Dooku talks about some treaty with the TF and co. But these "regular" seps are not there.

What the TF and co would want, even if not stated, we can make guesses about.
No taxes, no regulations, unrestrained robber capitalism basically.
But why would that sound appealing to regular systems?
We know that the TF is behind a lot of the corruption in the senate so it is not unreasonable to assume that the other big companies are also like that.
So why would a system, that is fed up with the corrupt senate, want a government run by the TF and co.
Why would that be any less corrupt?

The problem the PT has, to me, is that it tries to have a more complex story with more depth and all that.
But in order to do that, you kind of have to explain and set up things a little more.
Not simply have "This is the EVIL empire that wants to conquer the galaxy because they are EVIL."

So give the various players some motivation, some background.
Dooku is a former jedi but why and how he turned is not explained.
In TPM, why do the TF blockade Naboo specifically?
Sidious told them.
What do the TF want?
The crawl talks about some new tax but apparently the plan was for the TF to invade Naboo and take over.
So they want that. But how does that get rid of this new tax?
Not answered.
In all, the TF look and behave like Sith goons. They do what they do because the sith tells them to.

The seps come out of nowhere in AotC, they are led by a sith but we see little of them and know even less what they want or why.
The only ones we see are the TF and more people like them, greedy, evil merchants.
Which the last film showed as sith goons so that the seps also looks like sith goons is not strange.

In closing, to me, the PT didn't succeed in being complex, mostly it just became complicated.
With lack of development, unclear motivations and some events happening only because the plot needs it.
The PT has most if not all of the main events be due to the Sith.
The Naboo situation, the clone army, the clone war so adding the seps to that fits. And we know that they are led by a sith.
If Palpatine and the sith did not exist, how much of the events in the PT would happen?
Not much.

Bye.
Blackboard Monitor

 

To be fair, there might have still been a rising group of disgruntled systems who wanted out of the Republic, but it wouldn’t have happened as quickly and the Republic, obviously, wouldn’t have a sudden Clone army.

 

Trailers aren't part of the movie. They're a separate thing. We're talking about the movie here--not the action figures, not the theatrical poster, not the trailer. The movie. (Unless you want to argue, say, that the plot twist in the beginning of Terminator 2 is ineffective because the trailer basically spoiled it.)

Yes, the movie immediately sets up Count Dooku as a suspicious figure by implicating him in Padme's assassination. But then several Jedi counter that a political assassination wouldn't be in his character, and that he's merely a political idealist. At this point, we don't know who's correct. We have no idea what's going on. That's what makes Count Dooku a mystery. That's what Obi-Wan's investigation is about.

But just because Count Dooku himself may be engaging in ethically murky activities doesn't mean the Separatists--a galaxy-wide movement of thousands of systems--are somehow in on the Sith plot en masse, or whatever implausible scenario you're arguing for. Padme herself, the one who implicated Dooku in the first place, is the one who points out that the Separatists will only seek an alliance with the commerce guilds if they "feel threatened." She's the one pushing for negotiations with the Separatists as an alternative to war. It is made abundantly clear by the films that the Separatists are a political movement of legitimately disaffected systems, and that Count Dooku is not a dictator ruling them through compulsion. Padme may not think very highly of the Separatists' leader, but she treats the movement itself as being composed of rational, good faith actors. If even two Jedi Knights of the Republic see Count Dooku as a political idealist who would never stoop to murder, then presumably his own followers see him the same way, regardless of the truth. Count Dooku being a bad guy does not automatically make the entire Separatist movement constitutionally evil. The movie makes this clear, and the only way to argue it doesn't is to ignore easily understandable exposition.

e: And actually I just looked up the trailer, and it's clear that Lucasfilm went out of its way to obscure Dooku's true allegiance and motivations. The only times we see Dooku in the trailer are when he's asking Obi-Wan to help him destroy the Sith, and a blink-and-you'll-miss-it wide shot at the very end, among a series of rapid-fire shots, showing Anakin fighting a figure with a red lightsaber who has his back turned to the camera:



Even the individual character poster that was created for Count Dooku (and would have been seen by far less people, mind you) shows him standing in front of an army of clone troopers holding a lightsaber which appears to have been deliberately altered to appear more of a neutral purplish color than the deep blood red associated with the Sith:



Though dedicated fans may have been clued in to the ultimate role Dooku would play in the film, Dooku's Sith allegiance was not at all something played up in the advertising campaign aimed at the general public. In fact, it was obviously intentionally downplayed. It seems to me they did the best they could within the constraints of advertising demands pertaining to a major character in the film, and a pretty good job at that.

But again, this isn't really relevant to the film itself, which is what this thread topic is about. I just thought it was interesting from a historical perspective.

 

Totally agree although since Lucas himself allowed other people in Lucasfilm to tell that alternate and inaccurate story in the first place before the sale it's not surprising that they aren't going to correct it. It only would have been if Lucas had done something with it himself. As he said there is his Star Wars then whatever else is done in the company which he wasn't worried about until he worked with it hence the Korriban to Moraband change.

Of course since that Yoda arc also made it clear that Bane is well known and famous for his changing the Sith to the Rule of Two that enforces that it must have happened long before one thousand years prior to TPM.

IIRC Lucas actually said at one point the Rule of Two was around for thousands of years so it could be far longer. The real answer is that he probably hadn't made his mind up because he didn't need to lock it down until he had to.

 

The original Sith Order from 2,000 years ago probably didn't last very long. Given how unstable a multi-Sith situation is always said to be, I would think it probably collapsed within a matter of years after achieving dominance--I personally wouldn't guess more than a decade at the most. So for all intents and purposes, the Banite Sith would have been around for about 2,000 years as well, having formed immediately after the old Order imploded. That's probably why Lucas has referred to the Rule of Two being around for "thousands" of years.

Lucas seems to have a pretty solid idea of the timeline. The TPM novelization from twenty years ago established the 2,000-years-ago date for the formation of the original Sith Order based on Lucas's notes, and here Lucas is giving an interview in 2019 repeating the exact same number. Lucas obviously worked this out in his head pretty specifically.

 

Also, in terms of imagining the Jedi vs Sith conflicts which took place after Sith dominance circa 2,000 BBY, it's worth remembering that the Rule of Two isn't absolute. In TCW we see that Dooku had underlings like Ventress, and then there was Maul and Savage running around as well. So it's not unreasonable to assume that actually there were more than two Sith at any given time, even after Bane. They could have had major conflicts with the Jedi.

 

Is it possible there were multiple sets of Sith Lords ruling over different sections of the galaxy. Often times they'd just leave each other alone. Sometimes they might join forces against a greater common foe. Ultimately in the end they'd try to destroy each other.