Lit The "dark side" (Palpatine-side) of Naboo

From my own experiences, the depictions of Naboo in the EU have always been based on how it reflects the idealized form of Padme (even if she doesn't always live up to it)... elegant, humanitarian, idealistic.

But not only was Padme far from perfect, people often forget that Naboo is the homeworld of someone even more famous and important than Padme... it's the homeworld of Emperor Palpatine too.

Yet for whatever reason, Naboo is still idealized, instead of also inevitably being a big influence on Palpatine too. And we know Naboo is far from perfect straight from TPM (and the rough drafts displayed the human supremacy attitude of the Naboo towards the Gungans as even worse).

I remember Luceno's "Darth Plagueis" went a little into how Naboo's politics had some dirty politics with King Veruna, an isolationism/xenophobia versus corporatism and selling out to be industrialized yet exploited by the Trade Federation debate, etc. But it's minimal. And elsewhere in the EU, it's almost entirely swept under the rug. Especially the racism/human supremacy angle.

Am I missing information, is there more exploration of Naboo's dark side?
How do you think the dark side of Naboo should be explored?
What other angles besides human supremacy should be explored for Naboo's dark side?

Maybe it's just me, but out of all worlds in the Star Wars universe, Naboo feels the most like the "homeworld" of the Star Wars universe, if that makes sense... it's just the fanbase's best sense of "home" in the GFFA. Even more than Tatooine or Coruscant or Endor (Naboo is the suburban garden planet, Coruscant is the urban planet, Tatooine is the rural planet, Endor is the exurbs/wilderness). Which is why it's important to show Naboo's dark side too.

 

I seem to recall there was a strike once and all the Naboo upper class hid while it was suppressed(IIRC)-we see the upper class of Naboo, their Nobillty.

Also the policy of mandated youth civil service seems to me to cause problems(or potentially cause problems).

The human gungan conflict likely wasn't a particularly clean or pleasant one-and palpatine expresses speciesist attitudes about gungans. I imagine he isn't the only one to hold such attitudes.

The Darth Plagueis novel gives us a good glimpse into Naboo society-dominated by a bunch of grasping noble families, corporate conglomerates seeking its resources, and what appears to be a very demanding society(mandated civil service isn't a particularly democratic policy).

 

Something about a Sando Aqua Monster corpse conspiracy and a hidden armory.

 

Ahh yes, The Monster! Great little short story.

 

I think Palpatine coming from such a picturesque and heavenly place is an interesting twist.

Honestly, I kind of wonder what it was like under the Empire.

There was a German film about a young girl who investigated what her town did during World War 2 and immediately ran into a bunch of opposition from them as it turned out it was Hitler's vacation town.

 

Maybe Naboo is supposed to be like 1950s America: Seems prosperous and welcoming, but the elites do bad things behind the scenes. This could be why people trusted Palpatine so much and never suspected that he could be power-hungry, let alone a Sith or the mastermind of a false flag conflict.

 

Isn't this based on a true story?

Anyway Naboo is very very pretty but so was renaissance Italy. Bring on the intrigue.

 

Back in 2005, when the rumors began that Leia and Luke were going to find out about Padme in Dark Nest, I thought for sure that they would go to Naboo. That we would meet the NJO-era queen. That there would be a space force full of hardened Royal Naboo Starfighter pilots who had defended their planet from the Yuuzhan Vong. Instead, we got what felt like a reluctantly-tacked-on side plot where Artoo shows them the ROTS DVD and they figure out their mom's identity... off-page. Yay.

Anyway I never played Galaxies but way back when I had an issue of SW Insider that had this big article on the game including a profile of Naboo as Palpatine's cottage retreat. I thought it was a really cool idea then and I still do --- Naboo as an Imperial world with an uncomfortable dark side to it, as a contrast to the beauty and hope that was presented in the prequels. Later EU seemed to kinda roll with it, with Imperial-friendly senators and the Palpatine-loyal Moff Panaka. Still wish we could have seen it in Dark Nest though.

 

In the Invasion of Theed Adventure Game, there is literally a dark side nexus on Naboo, featuring an evil tree that whips people with its thorny branches.

 

I always thought that, especially in the old EU where the more racist side of the Empire was emphasized, it was all too plausible that the human population of Naboo would fully jump onboard with the new regime. The emperor is a local (Pestage too, I think?) along with at least some of the imperial advisors, plus the sector moff is a local hero, and the popular former queen was killed by the evil Jedi, and now finally they don't have listen to Republic-era political correctness about integrating the youngling education with the slimy Gungans. Like I said, all too plausible.

I remember when the TFA teaser first came out and everyone was wondering if the temperate planet shown was going to be Naboo, with speculation that maybe Leia was the new queen of Naboo, or at least Naboo was the planet she now represented in the New Republic. Still wish we had gotten those. But guess those would be a little too much prequel focus for the new flagship movie.

The old WOTC stuff that came out around the release of TPM had some good bits on the dirtier side of Naboo.

 

The Naboo are nothing else if not proud, and the rebellion shown in Star Wars battlefront 2 doesn't make them any more idealized just that queen was a Jedi sympathizer.

 

Do we know in canon, if Palpatine is even really from Naboo....hell Palpatine might not even be his REAL name.

Sure Sheev was born on Naboo but maybe Sidious has been around longer

 

GIVE IT TO ME!
And have them fighting side by side with Gungans!

 

Curiously enough Naboo was never at direct risk from the yuuzhan vong. Given the chommel sector's location in the galactic south it was part of the Galaxy that the Vong never reached even at the height of their empire.

I imagine off screen Naboo fighter pilots and security forces did assist in the war.

Which speaking of that-I wish we had gotten more of a glimpse of the unaffected by the Yuuzhan Vong war Galaxy. Places farther south on the galactic plane than mon calamari and hence beyond the reach of the Vong.

 

I remember reading a suggestion that the Naboo Sea Monsters are Sithspawn.

The fact that Lucas originally called Palpatine "Nixon" points to my above 1950s analogy.

 

My headcanon is Jar Jar is Force sensitive like Zayne Carrick and caused a great victory for the Rebellion by dropping a thermal detanator down a reactor shaft during the Siege of Naboo.

 

I wonder if he was Chancellor of the Imperial Senate at any point.

This is how I imagine Daala being interviewed about her warcrimes went.

 

. . . So? Luke Skywalker, savior of the galaxy, was born on a planet where it's only major exports were crime and sand (for that matter, so was the future Darth Vader). Do bad people only come from bad planets and good people from good planets?

Can't Palpatine be evil just because that's who he is, without a Freudian excuse like "he grew up on a planet of Space Racists" or "his girlfriend died"? *

That being said, I do agree with some of the points that have been brought up in this thread:

• I liked that the later EU brought attention to the political consequences of Naboo having that association of being the birthplace of the Emperor (it being the home of his retreat, the mention in Lost Stars that there's been 3 battles for Naboo thanks to it's symbolic value).
• I agree that the species-ism of the Naboo towards the Gungans was sort of swept under the rug. If I had to guess, I think there's two major factors to this. The first is that in TPM not much time is devoted to it. Boss Nass says he dosn't like the Naboo, Padme swallows her pride to beg him from help, and Boom. There's peace. The second factor is that after the reputation a certain Mr. Binks gained, no one could ever take a story of the Gungans as an oppressed minority seriously. It would be like doing a serious examination on the ethics of vigilantism in a super hero story . . . about Arm Fall Off Boy.

*that's a reference to behind the scenes plans for the scrapped TV series Star Wars: Underworld by the way

 

In all seriousness, the Vong never reached the Chommel sector.

 

Our own @The_Four_Dot_Elipsis wrote Greejatus's "What's the Story" entry and had him succeed Palpatine as the Chommell sector's senator. Looks like Fourdot made his homeworld Chommell Minor rather than Naboo itself, but Luceno rolled with Fourdot's info in Darth Plagueis and had Janus and Palps as childhood friends. Damn, that must have been cool. Having Luceno reference continuity that you came up with.

Did we know that in 2005? Or is a Vong-on-Naboo story something Denning could have plausibly written, pre-Atlas?

I know that the NJO books themselves had that map with the Vong's invasion route, but they weren't all-inclusive. Surely a scouting force could have ended up on Naboo or something. Maybe during Force Heretic when they were sending spies to Bakura, the Koornacht Cluster, etc.

 

There should be a story about childhood best friends Janus and Sheev.