The ROTS Conspiracy Theory Thread

Ouch?

Did you read mine? At least yours was actually well thought out...

 

TheCRZA, I was messing around! Emoticons will make it clear

Maybe though, Sidious really did control the force lightning so it hit him rather than absorbed into Mace's saber.

 

My apologies, Yosh. I meant that my own post would be mindless drivel.

I actually find your idea about Sids controlling the flow interesting.
I always thought that he was just making one continuous circuit and not
really absorbing that much damage.

Just going for the joke, back there, I meant no offense.

 

Good thoughts, but what ould he have REALLY done with the younglings , I don't think Lucas would make Anakin go into the room like that and not do anything .

 

Okay - here's one I've been thinking about recently:

There are no Sith secrets.

Sith - in effect, are just angry Force-users.
Sith lightning is not something that is learned, it is something that consumes a person as they descend into the depths of the Dark Side of the Force.
It is the ultimate manifestation of anger, and that is why no Jedi will ever be able to do it.
It just comes naturally, when you succumb fully to the traits which denote the Dark Side.

Anakin will never be able to do it, we are told, because he has no arms - so what does he ever learn from Sidious?
Diddly-squat.
Not only does Palpatine know nothing about creating life, but the whole thing is a bluff - he has nothing to teach Anakin, period.
The Sith practice is based solely on the acquisition of power and the promotion of fear, anger and hatred.

Okay, obviously, in this scenario, a Force-sensitive person trained from scratch does learns something from the Sith.
I don't doubt that.
But, there is nothing they can teach that a Jedi cannot - no special powers.

My point is, Anakin is Palpatine's humble servent after ROTS.
It is not just about Palpatine not being able to offer what he promised - Anakin's humiliation goes far further even than that.
Anakin is a slave to the Dark Side, and he chose that path for power.
But the anger, the frustration and the utter self-loathing is actually what gives Anakin his power from hereon in, not something that Palpatine instructs or teaches him.
It comes from within Anakin himself, and so long as he remains the bitter loser who is totally subservient to Palpatine, he will be powerful, because those feelings are the source of the power.

I guess what I am saying is - After the credits roll on ROTS, Sidious has actually taught Anakin nothing. He is a Sith "apprentice" - yet he is now the public face of the Sith: He has spearheaded the new Sith order's first campaign against the Jedi and will continue to do so into the next 20 years.
I like the idea that, in those intervening 20 years, Anakin continues to actually learn nothing - except how to become more twisted and evil - and the fact that he is getting nothing from Palps, no formal training, is in itself what being a Sith apprentice is about.

Hate.
Slavery.

The Jedi are disciplined, ordered, structured - And they are schooled thusly.
The Sith are the antithesis of this - untampered, primal, chaos, totally lacking in control and discipline. Sith training is to have no training at all.
And that is Palpatine's true bluff in the saga...

 

Thats a superb theory GIG and is backed up by Yoda's comment in ESB:

Luke: Is the dark side stronger?

Yoda: No, quicker, easier, more seductive.

The Sith and Jedi have the same powers - able to see the future, telekentic abilities, mind tricks etc.

The Sith dont have any more. But I believe what you are saying is that a quicker route to those powers is by joining the dark side. The anger puts you on a quicker path, but at the end of the day, you end up at the same place a focused, patient Jedi would be. The only difference is you live a life of unhappiness and anger. The jedi lead a life of happiness and love.

But what if Palpatine was fed the same ** and has wanted these powers all his life? Perhaps the same thing has happened to other Sith as well? They believe there to be special secrets only the dark side can offer them but its nothing more than trick, a ruse. Perhaps Palpatine believed that Anakin was the source to this secret power. Being the chosen one maybe he could have the power to save people from death etc. Maybe that is why Palpatine is annoyed when Anakin gets all beat up. I always wondered why he bothered with him afterwards, why he risked keeping him alive - perhaps this is it?

And then when Luke comes along Papatine believes that seeing Vader has lost most of his power and never had the chance to find the Sith secrets, Luke would be an ideal replacement. Afterall he is Vaders son and should become as powerful...

 

That is exactly one way of looking at the whole Plagueis thing - it is a myth that has confronted numerous Sith throughout history.
The quest for the ultimate power, the power to control life itself.

Think about this - perhaps Palpatine smiles when he fondly recollects Plagueis the Wise becuase he was real, and he was Palpatine's former Master, and he was really killed by Palpatine's own fair hands.
But why was he killed?
Because Palpatine had learned the truth.
Plagueis too had told Palpatine the story of his former Master, and how he knew the ultimate power, and how Plagueis had learned this power.
Plagueis was now near the end of his life - just like Yoda in ROTJ, strong with the Force, but not that strong - and he had told Palpatine the truth: he knew no such power, but now it was Palpatine's turn to carry the Sith torch, to seek out this power, the power cheat death.
It is a story which has been passed down through the Sith lineage for centuries - the power may exist, but no one has yet achieved it.

Incensed that he had been duped, Palpatine lashed out and murdered his master for the deception.

But what of the power?
Plagueis was right. Palpatine is now trapped, a slave to the Dark Side - he must become more powerful, and he must find an apprentice powerful enough to perhaps tap this legendary power.
His only hope is to carry on the Sith tradition, find someone worthy of hearing this ancient fable once more.
Maul did not have the potential.
Dooku had the power, but did not have the flaws, the right motives - he was too rigid.
But what about the Jedi's very own chosen one?

Palpatine smiles as he tells the story to Anakin, because he knows the truth - he knows the story is just a lie. But he knows how powerful, how determined that lie ultimately made him.
And he knows how powerful it will make Anakin.

It is the quest for power itself which brings a Sith his power...

"Only through [your hatred and fear of] me can you achieve a power greater than any Jedi." Heh!

 

^^^^

The Sith quest for the holy grail. Thats an exciting thought. Makes sense why Palpatine would kill Plagueis. But I love the fact that although Palpatine may see the secret as a lie (and uses it so) he must continue the Sith quest to find this ultimate power. Little does he know that the only people who can achieve it is the Jedi. So, metaphorically -the Jedi are the holy grail.

The search for the holy grail ends by being the perfect Jedi.


EDIT: Gig, although he see's it as a lie, do you believe that there is a chance that Palpatine see's this power (to cheat death) as a possibility?

Or perhaps the holy grail for the Sith is the quest for it - the holy grail being power. By searching for the holy grail (unlimited power) they find it on the journey/path to the dark side. As you put it Gig - hate and anger.

That how most of George Lucas' stories go. Always ends up with the holy grail!

Its like Indiana Jones when he is searching for it. The holy grail ends up being his relationship with his father which he discovered on the quest for the 'literal holy grail'.

 

I think you're looking for Hitler to toss you a ball and play catch. He's not such a bad guy, right? He didn't kill all those Jews, he sent them on a train to Disneyland.

Anakin is worse, he's the hatchetman.

Come on, Anakin has always had BAD in him too. Just take his simmering hatred on Tatooine and his anger at the council for not being trained, just in Episode I. Now just think, Mr. Chosen One was never given the chance to be a youngling. These are the lucky elite, the golden boys, in his mind. I suspect that he headed right for them and has always been jealous of them.

Do you think he ignited his sabre to show it to them? "Look kids, mine is a pretty blue color.". Come on. He killed them. Plain and simple.

Given the horrible things he did, I found it weird that he even bothered visiting Padme. He really did cross the Rubicon with the temple massacre.

 

Well, it's just a crackpot theory - I thought that was the idea of this thread.
I'm not saying I neccessarily buy all of this, just that it is a POV you could reasonably assume which maybe flies in the face of common thinking.

But there is a part of me which has always believed that the Sith never truly overcome their fear.
Palpatine may think he is without fear, but that is what his whole life is based on.
More power - the ultimate greed, as Lucas put it, is to try and cheat death. That is what Palpatine is after, and that can only be a product of being afraid of losing power; afraid of losing life.
So yeah, I think the acquisition of power breeds the fear of losing it (as ROTS pretty much spells out) and that in turn leads to the quest for more power - the logical conclusion is the quest for the ultimate power.
If Palpatine had such power - the ultimate power, surely he would have hung up his gloves and been satisfied. If he could cheat death he would be untouchable - he could lose nothing.

The fear that leads Palpatine to seek out the ultimate power is the very thing which prevents him from actually achieving it.
Obi lets go.
Yoda lets go.
It is the loss of fear, of self, which leads to true power.

Or something like that.

The Sith never face their problems - they try to crush them.
They try to become powerful enough to topple them, rather than becoming humble enough to accept them, which is what a Jedi should do.

Certainly a nice way of putting it, but I think the point is the whole Sith way is a sham.
It's all about losing power, and trying to prevent that by gaining more and more power.
In the end, that achieves nothing, save for the fact that they simply have more power to lose.
In a way Palpatine is actually describing to Anakin why the Sith way fails - because (in the story) Plagueis' power does not help him at all.

"The more you tighten your grip, Governor Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers..."

...And...

"There is always a bigger fish."

No matter how much power you have, jealous minds will always come to take it away.


So perhaps this is the Sith goal/dilemma:
They, by their nature, create jealous, bitter, hateful, greedy people.
The rule of two cuts this down to a bare minimum, but there is still always the vengeful apprentice waiting in the wings.
The Sith have not yet achieved the goal.
They will never achieve that goal if there are no Sith to achieve it.
Therefore the mortal Sith must pass on the tradition, because the goal is to have just one immortal Sith who can live without the need for an apprentice, and live on without fear.
And that is why each new apprentice must try even harder than the last, to make sure that "one" Sith is themselves.
Otherwise there is no future for the Sith.
It is a vicious circle.
Palps is clearly powerful, and he almost finds the right balance, but, ultimately, he just gets too greedy with Anakin.

 

My conspiracy theory is real simple: I think that Padme Amidala-Skywalker was murdered, and I'm pretty sure I saw Chancellor Palpatine standing on a grassy knoll...

Honestly, I don't know how he did it. Maybe Darth Sidious had some remote control kill like we see Darth Vader use to kill Admirals over the holonet. Maybe the chancellor slipped a little Kamino saber venom into the Senator's Bantha Flakes...who knows? But I just know he was behind it somehow. Did you know that Opie mutilations on Naboo were up 38% the day that Padme died?!? Coincidence? I think not!! Not only that, but I read somewhere that 11 Heyblibbers crashed that day too and Jar Jar was confirmed to be on Coruscant at the time!

 

I think G-I-G's Conspiracy theory contains more facts than falsehoods......

here's mine:

I believe that the Sith/Jedi relationship more closely mirrors the Decepticon/Autobot relationship established in Soundwave's Cybertronian Bio. In that respect I mean to say that the Sith are the older of the two.....and IMO the rightful leaders of both factions. Maybe the Jedi started out as Sith apprentices that just couldn't hack it powerwise.....so they went off to meditate in solitude.....and then over time they accepted the fact that they would never be powerful enough to become a true Sith Lord, but they could train other Jedi to be as humble as they are. This would also account for the hundreds stretched to thousands of years the Sith ruled the Galaxy without opposition.

It wasn't until the lowly Jedi Masters realized their powers had increased steadily over the years through meditating and focused training....that they began to realize the awesome truth. Sure the darkside IS more powerful and faster, but a Jedi can become quite powerful in his own time.

 

I have a theory that Palpatine/Sidious/Marshall Mathers killed Padme.

The droids say that they can find no reason for her to be dying, but that she is anyway.
It's so unnatural that a Sith would preserve life...but maybe Sids found a way to make midichlorians suck the life out of somebody?

At the end of teh movie, when Vader is asking about Padme, Sids tells him that Vader killed her in his ange. Vader says it's not possible, but when he goes berserk, Sids smiles that wicked smile we all know and love. He ALSO was not around when she DID die...she was with Yoda and Obi-Wan.

How would he have known that she died? Yoda wouldn't have sent Palps a memo on the subject.

Sids knew that Padme was Anakin's "shatterpoint," and he played it perfectly. Getting her to die was teh ultimate in anger and fear for Vader. He was afraid to lose her and to fail at saving her like he did his mother. He was angry at teh council for giving him Master title to gain access to teh holocrons that theoretically contained the secrets of Darth Plageious.

It kind of makes sense and fits together.

 

So perhaps this is the Sith goal/dilemma:
They, by their nature, create jealous, bitter, hateful, greedy people.
The rule of two cuts this down to a bare minimum, but there is still always the vengeful apprentice waiting in the wings.
The Sith have not yet achieved the goal.
They will never achieve that goal if there are no Sith to achieve it.
Therefore the mortal Sith must pass on the tradition, because the goal is to have just one immortal Sith who can live without the need for an apprentice, and live on without fear.
And that is why each new apprentice must try even harder than the last, to make sure that "one" Sith is themselves.
Otherwise there is no future for the Sith.
It is a vicious circle.
Palps is clearly powerful, and he almost finds the right balance, but, ultimately, he just gets too greedy with Anakin.

That is simply brilliant GiG.

Are you suggesting here that the quest for immortality could exist?

I think that could be clearly backed up in the film - it just depends on whether we are willing to believe anything Palpatine say:

"To cheat death is a power only one has achieved (LIE)....but if we work together, I know we can discover the secret" (HOPE?)

I like the idea of the Sith's quest for the holy grail -the search for immortality. The search itself makes the a Sith (using hate, anger and aggression). But they will never find the holy grail as only the Jedi can achieve this.

The holy grail for the Jedi is to bring peace and freedom to the galaxy and to be a selfless person. And in their quest to achieve this they actually find the Siths holy grail - immortality.

Interesting stuff.

 

Counter that with:

QUI -GON: (V.O.) Patience. You will have time. I did not. When I became one with the Force I made a great discovery. With my training, you will be able to merge with the Force at will. Your physical self will fade away, but you will still retain your consciousness. You will become more powerful than any Sith.

YODA: Eternal consciousness.

This is a great theory, i would say that eventually; the Sith holy grail can only be achieved by returning to the lightside. That is their ultimate purpose, to overcome their greed and selfisness through compassion and selflessness.

Palpatine was RIGHT: "If we work together, we can discover the secret", by using Darth Vader for years and torturing his son, Anakin ultimately discovered the road to immortality - hence, he stands proud next to Yoda and Obi-Wan at the end of RotJ.

- O_F

 

Palpatine was RIGHT: "If we work together, we can discover the secret", by using Darth Vader for years and torturing his son, Anakin ultimately discovered the road to immortality - hence, he stands proud next to Yoda and Obi-Wan at the end of RotJ.

Good point. Palpatine may even call it 'ironic'.

 

The killing of the younglings serves a couple of purposes. First, it thoroughly completes Anakin's metamorphosis to Vader. Second, and most important for me, is that it makes his redemption that much larger and awe-inspiring.

The whole theme (now, anyway) of the OT is the redemption of Vader. Sure, Vader destroyed planets, had the blood of billions on his hands, but to know that he PERSONALLY executed young kids is the horrific act of a true monster. That he can turn away from that for the love of his son is a very powerful image...

 

I always thought Yoda and Mace knew that the appearance of the "chosen one" portended the end of the Jedi Order as they knew it. When Qui-gon talks about the discovery of the child "born of the force", they give each other a look......and they don't look too happy.
From their initial reaction, this does not seem like good news. Mace seems like he is in denial about it until his death.