Lit What’s your view on Operation Cinder?

IMO, destroying loyal and neutral planets was meant for filtering not fanatically loyal enough Imperials.

Also Vardos could have become an open center for imperial resistance against the New Republic, thereby prolonging GCW. And that was not part of the Contingency, considering original plans for the Battle of Jakku.

 

For all the criticism the Aftermath trilogy gets, its' idea of an Empire only existing to protect its Emperor was very fitting.

 

I've always seen the Empire (especially now in Canon) as Palpatine's big excuse for a science project.

The Empire is just their for resources as he plots to be god... I mean he needs manpower and free reign somehow.

 

He needs... minions.

 

Stormtrooper: BANANA!

Minions
Resources
Unlimited access
Gotta put those cloning facilities somewhere

 

If he's so arrogant then shouldn't his attitude be "well I'm not going to die in the first place"? For him to have this plan at all would mean he'd have to consider "oh hey, this could actually all go sideways and I might die" which doesn't seem like Palpatine.

 

It was. Hence the use of dark science, cloning, secrets only the Sith knew etc.

He's arrogant, but not so stupid as to ignore the very nature of the Sith.

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One thing that has really sold me on Operation Cinder is that scene with Hess in The Believer. Seeing the fanaticism portrayed on-screen was really effective.

 

Yeah, that is how I saw it back when he stayed dead.

With him coming back, it makes less sense.

....though maybe he made the contingency before he had a viable way of transferring bodies. Or heck, maybe he wasn't even sure it was going to work. It was obviously far from perfected given his prematurely aged body with severe health problems.

The first part: That would make a fair amount of sense. Make sure all the founders of his return fleet would be the type to strangle their own children to please him so there is less chance of betrayal while he is vulnerable.

The second part is where things get weird. Like, if he is going to return, why did he want to wreck the loyalists that stayed with him this far? Why not drag out the GCW to have everyone be weakened and war weary?

After all, there was no guarantee the New Republic was going to have a small, centralized fleet vulnerable to decapitation strike, and if that was the case his limited of troops would be extremely vulnerable.

(heck that ended up happening anyway once the citizen fleet got together.)

That was a great line and fitting of his attitude.

Yeah, I thought about that too. But ultimately, things aren't black and white. One can be arrogant without being completely detached from reality and having no concept of being able to fail or come to harm. Palps didn't go running into the jedi temple to kill them all himself.

So while he didn't think much of the rag tag rebel alliance and its chances to defeat him, he might still thought it possible that something might kill him.

In particular, it seems fitting that he would consider Vader, his apprentice and pet project, something he molded into the most dangerous thing a person could be, was the only real threat to him. That the only thing that could challenge Palpatine was Palpatine, via his own creation.

 

The FO creation seems to be a decades-long plan. In the meantime, either (and more likely) the New Republic would have finally defeated Imperial remnants (but would have become more militaristic because of longer war) or some of remnants would have survived, gained strength and potentially would have become a rival to the FO.

 

Post Rise of Skywalker it does make the Contingency seem to be naturally a part of his resurrection plan, and his notion is to throw the galaxy into chaos and into pieces while he strengthens the Final Order and his new clone body on Exegol. But he basically had to smash everything to pieces while he had his Sith army waiting for him.

 

Yeah. I thought Operation Cinder was a fairly clever bridge between Palpatine's natural tendencies and the creation of the First Order. You're separating the wheat from the chaff: anyone who sticks with the Empire through Operation Cinder is going to be an utter fanatic, and you can totally see how a First Order built out of these people would result in the North Korea like cult that we see in the sequels, rather than the somewhat more ordinary dictatorship we see in the original movies.

Knowing he wanted to make himself immortal, I also wonder if his ultimate plan wasn't something like Anubis' in Stargate SG-1: actually destroy the galaxy, as in an extinction level event, and then rebuild/repopulate it in your own image. The fleet of Star Destroyers with superlaser beams kind of suggests as much; he could terrorize the galaxy into submission, but he could also ultimately decide to just go around zapping every major planet out of existence, and then, if he feels the need to rebuild, doing it by colonizing whatever unsettled and largely empty planets are left.

And Operation Cinder isn't that, but it's kind of a nice appetizer for it.

 

You got to work up to a multi-planet killing rampage. First you get them being to wreck planets again and again, then you supply them with a superlaser Star Destroyer.....

 

Fair enough, that makes a lot of sense.

I was under the impression that Palpatine's plan for Jakku would have killed the people who formed the foundation for the First Order - so it seems like he wasn't planning on the FO existing and was just going to rely on his cultist forces.

 

@MercenaryAce

No Rax had the Imperalis (The shuttle) ready to go hence why he took Hux with him. Only difference was Jakku wasn't destroyed and Rax didn't go

 

Operation Cinder is just the opening of Dark Empire, restored to the original intended date.
It also seemed like a way to jump ahead to the NT era as if the story of the OT was concluded, which is something I think they're regretting now.

 

Eh, I'm very tired on planetary destruction tropes, and I thought this was one of the sticks used to beat the old EU with when it was first wiped, but we're right back on the same track of having planet after planet destroyed. I felt it especially in the Alphabet Squadron trilogy where it felt like planets lost all meaning because they were just places for Shadow Wing to fly to and try to destroy.

 

Honestly I kinda like this new Timeline and how it's working out.

DE's original intent in some way via Aftermath.

Thrawn then doing his thing although perhaps more covertly and maybe he doesn't even attack the New Republic (Depends on how really this story is told)

Then the Dark Empire full on assault again.

So I think it's working on great so far.

Proof that Star Wars has a way of retroactively work itself out.

 

JAT…?


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Ah.. Thank you!


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That is pretty cool! I love how canon echoed Legends and how the timelines compliment each other.

 

I loved in the Rogue Squadron series where they hung a lampshade on the concept when they deployed propaganda against an Imperial warlord by fabricating supposed plans for another (nonexistent) Death Star variant he was was working on, costing him popular support.

 

Yup - though it was Isard rather than the New Republic who did the fabricating, conning the New Republic - as part of her big scheme to reclaim the Lusankya.

 

You're right, that was in Isard's Revenge, wasn't it? Shows I need to do a reread...