Just a Palpatine doodle because I had been exchanging messages with cutlerbeckettt and it brought me into a supreme mood for my old fandom fixation – stuff about Naboo politicians!
(The only reason they’re cheerfully smiling at each other is because they all had the clever idea of poisoning everyone else’s champagne. The results: 5 hangovers and antidote sessions.)
Gah. The whole clone thing in The Clone Wars is SO FUCKED UP. These are supposed to be the good guys and what they’ve done is the same thing that the First Order is doing to stormtroopers, essentially.
In the episode I’m watching now, Rex says they took an oath, but like, how did they possibly have a choice to take any oath?
Am I missing something, or is the Republic just that fucked up?
The Republic is sort of that fucked up, but I don’t think they got there by themselves. Look who’s in charge! Really, keep an eye on Palpatine, especially the speeches he gives. Every time he gives a speech, your stomach should curdle because something really bad is about to happen, and it’s going to happen because he’s about to emotionally engage people to be terrible sentient beings. A significant portion of how bad the Republic gets–not all of it, but a meaningful chunk–is ol’ Darth Sidious basically fucking with everybody’s minds. Not in a Dark Side way, but in a worse way. He wedged the Republic into this rock and a hard place with this war he created, and then he says to them, “Isn’t making clone soldiers better than sending our own people out to die?”
“And you know what,” he then says to them, “let’s put the Jedi in charge! Because they’re MERCIFUL. Because they’re HONORABLE. Because THEY, you can be sure, will not abuse people or engage in violence beyond what’s necessary or throw lives away needlessly or commit all those horrors you inevitably see in war.”
And everybody up to and including the Jedi nod, because doesn’t that seem wise and compassionate?
And then he points to devastated colonies as horror stories about what happens each time they fail, and lets them scare themselves into justifying everything. He lets the war itself convince them that they HAVE to win, by any means necessary. He just sits back and lets the Republic, even the Jedi, learn how to dehumanize–depersonify–their enemies (when it’s robots and clones you see doing most of the shooing, it’s so easy to forget that actual people are dying, isn’t it? Even for the audience). All he has to do is stand up and give an occasional speech, and let them all get swept away in the “us versus them” and “whatever it takes.”
And so they all convince themselves that the right thing to do is have the Kaminoans breed clones for them to train up and send off to die in a war the poor guys never asked for. As the series goes on, the clones and everyones’ reactions to them are really kind of the living breadcrumb trail of how far the Republic is falling as things go on. Palpatine effectively turns the entire galaxy to the Dark Side. And he doesn’t even have to actually use the Dark Side to do it. Dude earns his Sith name.
DAAAAAMN.
And everybody up to and including the Jedi nod, because doesn’t that seem wise and compassionate?
Dude, the Jedi couldn’t even SAY NO to Palpatine or the Senate. The Jedi were there to protect and defend the Republic and the Republic WAS the Senate since the Senate was the voice of all the planets in the Republic.
I mean, look at Sheev, talking to Mace in Anakin and Obi-Wan #1
“Well, I’m the Chancellor, so you guys have to do what I say!!!!”
Now, let’s say the Jedi did say no to the Clone Wars. A lot of people say the Jedi went back on their teachings and should have declined to fight, but they couldn’t. If they did, then most likely they would be branded as traitors to the Republic. “The Jedi will not fight for the Republic they claim to defend and love! The Jedi would rather see Coruscant in ashes than fight!” And the Jedi Order gets shunned out of the Republic, leaving Palpatine free to take over. His whole goal for the Clone Wars was to destroy the Jedi so he can take over the Galaxy, right? If the Jedi are banished, they won’t be able to touch him. What are 10,000 Jedi going to do against my Clone Army and all these people in the Republic who love me? Or maybe he’d just let the CIS win and rule through a puppet leader like Dooku.
So, no matter what the Jedi do, Palpatine is going to fucking win.
Putting the Jedi in charge was a great idea because it made people start associating the Jedi with war. Despite the fact that for AT LEAST a thousand years, the Jedi were known as peacekeepers who most likely just did diplomatic missions and helped out people, all that seems to fall away when they are shown on the HoloNet News leading armies.
Palpatine drags that war out so long that people are now thinking the Jedi are in charge of it all. They are the ones leading it all. So the public opinion of the Jedi becomes tainted.
So when Palpatine claims the Jedi are traitors and tried to kill him, people actually believe him. He was able to make a religious group of space wizards who were known for at least a thousand years as ‘the good good GOOD guys’ into the bad guys. He was able to corrupt the Jedi Order in the minds of the galaxy without the Jedi Order being corrupt.
Annnnnnd don’t forget the whole amorality of the existence of the clones themselves.
They are manufactured and perceived by many (not all) to just be wetware battle droids, expendable and replaceable, to spend their whole brief lifespan fighting for the safety and freedom of Republic citizens, while never knowing safety or freedom for themselves or their brothers.
And you can see them start to doubt their purpose – Cut deserting, Slick’s betrayal, Fives desperately trying to reveal the truth to someone who can help – and it hurts. A lot.
“So, no matter what the Jedi do, Palpatine is going to fucking win.”
Literally most important note ever. For all the terrible things the Jedi were accomplices to, it’s all because Palpatine rigged the game from the start. If they had refused to fight under the moral ground that using the clones is unethical, Palpatine would have just labeled them traitors a decade earlier, fabricated some evidence that they were scheming with the Separatists all long, and the clones would have just marched right into the Temple.
The Jedi refuse to be the generals in war, upholding their beliefs? They end up branded traitors and unfeeling and monsters in the eye of the Republic. Palpatine wins.
The Jedi accept the position as generals, rendering them heavily in the public eye as warriors and military, giving credence to the lie that they are traitors? Palpatine wins.
The Jedi lose so many over the course of the War that their numbers dwindle, forcing Palpatine to instate non-jedi generals? Palpatine wins.
The Jedi come to kill him and fail? They get branded traitors against the Republic. Palpatine wins.
The Jedi come to kill him and succeed? They’ve just murdered the Supreme Chancelor! Palpatine wins.
The only way I can see that the Galaxy is saved is if Palpatine goes down in a rescue mission, along /with/ his Jedi protectors. (Anakin and Obi-Wan go into hiding somewhere.) Then the Jedi can say that the Separatists are at the doorstep of the center of the Galaxy, and can rally votes for their senator. Amidala is elected Supreme Chancellor, and she uses Palpatines powers for good.
Even then, that’s so convoluted and out there that it’s not likely to happen. The one thing that Palpatine is good at is setting the Jedi up to fail.
Say what you want about him, but Palpatine is a hell of a villain, and I’d dearly love to plant a couple explosives right between his eyes.
padmé amidala didnt die for you to ship her grandkids together
While i dont exactly ship Reylo, I’m still holding out hope that Rey is a Palpatine and not a Skywalker
padme amidala didnt die for you to connect her granddaughter to a slimy creature like palpatine
Oh shit, I actually really like that idea? Not because of shipping or anything, but because there’s always been this thing in Star Wars that it’s your blood, primarily, that maps out your destiny (’He has too much of his father in him’ / ‘There’s too much Vader in him’) and it would be really interesting to see Rey buck that trend by being related to pretty much the only person in the Star Wars verse considered irredeemable – and being a decent, kind person anyway.
Also because out of all the characters in Star Wars, Palpatine would probably be the most likely to abandon a little girl in a desert.
… hes fucking dead
Well yes, but – TFA is set what, 30 years after ROTJ? Palpatine could have established a lineage by ROTJ and given whomever who still loyal to him instructions that any grandchildren should be hidden away should anything happen to him (regardless of how shitty that would be for the child, because…this is Palpatine.) I think it works, timeline wise?
(Although that bit was more of a joke really.)
It won’t happen in the movies, I really doubt that, but I think it’s a idea with potential at least. Not least because of how much it would test everyone’s relationship to Rey. Finn would still love her, of course, but I can see Leia, maybe even Luke, accidentally wondering from time to time “when will this girl snap?” Rey herself wondering “what am I, do I have the dark side in me too?” and slowly learning that no, of course she doesn’t, because like Finn and Kylo she’s defined by her choices rather than her heritage.
But I don’t really mind who she’s related to really (if anyone). I trust the writers will do it right. Well, mostly.
I don’t know if this was ever a popular fandom theory, but I once started a story based on the premise that Padme was Palpatine’s grand-daughter, but this was hidden from the public for political reasons. Never got round to finishing it though… But I always thought it was a shame that, bio-connection aside, the PT didn’t make much of the connection that Padme and Palpatine should have had as politicians from the same home world who had ended up on Coruscant.
padmé amidala didnt die for you to ship her grandkids together
While i dont exactly ship Reylo, I’m still holding out hope that Rey is a Palpatine and not a Skywalker
padme amidala didnt die for you to connect her granddaughter to a slimy creature like palpatine
Oh shit, I actually really like that idea? Not because of shipping or anything, but because there’s always been this thing in Star Wars that it’s your blood, primarily, that maps out your destiny (’He has too much of his father in him’ / ‘There’s too much Vader in him’) and it would be really interesting to see Rey buck that trend by being related to pretty much the only person in the Star Wars verse considered irredeemable – and being a decent, kind person anyway.
Also because out of all the characters in Star Wars, Palpatine would probably be the most likely to abandon a little girl in a desert.
… hes fucking dead
Well yes, but – TFA is set what, 30 years after ROTJ? Palpatine could have established a lineage by ROTJ and given whomever who still loyal to him instructions that any grandchildren should be hidden away should anything happen to him (regardless of how shitty that would be for the child, because…this is Palpatine.) I think it works, timeline wise?
(Although that bit was more of a joke really.)
It won’t happen in the movies, I really doubt that, but I think it’s a idea with potential at least. Not least because of how much it would test everyone’s relationship to Rey. Finn would still love her, of course, but I can see Leia, maybe even Luke, accidentally wondering from time to time “when will this girl snap?” Rey herself wondering “what am I, do I have the dark side in me too?” and slowly learning that no, of course she doesn’t, because like Finn and Kylo she’s defined by her choices rather than her heritage.
But I don’t really mind who she’s related to really (if anyone). I trust the writers will do it right. Well, mostly.
padmé amidala didnt die for you to ship her grandkids together
While i dont exactly ship Reylo, I’m still holding out hope that Rey is a Palpatine and not a Skywalker
padme amidala didnt die for you to connect her granddaughter to a slimy creature like palpatine
Oh shit, I actually really like that idea? Not because of shipping or anything, but because there’s always been this thing in Star Wars that it’s your blood, primarily, that maps out your destiny (’He has too much of his father in him’ / ‘There’s too much Vader in him’) and it would be really interesting to see Rey buck that trend by being related to pretty much the only person in the Star Wars verse considered irredeemable – and being a decent, kind person anyway.
Also because out of all the characters in Star Wars, Palpatine would probably be the most likely to abandon a little girl in a desert.
It never occurred to me that Palpatine was actually born and was actually a child at some point and not just perpetually an old man trying to ruin everything
Legends did actually manage to give him something of a background – the firstborn of a well-to-do family on Naboo who was pretty much despised by his father and compared negatively to his younger siblings.
One wonders what might have happened if Palpatine had been the secondborn or had a twin brother. Palpatine Senior hadn’t wanted to give his firstborn son to the Jedi, just in case he had no other heir, and by the time his other children came along, it was too late to send Sheev to them. So if there had been a twin, or if Palpatine had been a younger son, he might very well have been shipped off to the Order.
Sheev Palpatine, Jedi Knight.
… I think the galaxy just whimpered.
He’d be a Jedi Master and on the Council …O_O
Idk if that would be better or worse for the galaxy. He might actually become a good Jedi (as unlikely as that sounds), he might leave the Jedi like Dooku, or he might decide that the the Republic’s problems would be solved if the Jedi seized power.
Then he’d have to convince/manipulate the other Jedi into doing that, all for “the greater good”.
I AM FUCKING HERE FOR THIS AU
“Master Palpatine?” It’s a very young Togruta child that calls his name from behind on the pillars in the Grand Entance. He goes to check on the children, to make sure that they are safe and that none of them have been harmed in his plans to take over the Republic. He needs these pliable young minds to mold into new Jedi for the New Order, more importantly, his Jedi upbringing makes him cringe at the idea of harming one these children.in the first place. “It’s alright young one. The danger has passed, you and your friends can come out now.” He says to them as he deactivates his purple lightsaber. She shuffles out from her hiding place, cautious as she should be, and is soon followed two young humans, a boy and a girl, a wookie, and a nautalan, all shaken and clutching at their training sabres. More children appear from other hidy holes, and even a few older Padawans begin appearing from side corridors and stair cases. “What do we do now, Master?” This time it’s a Triani boy who tucks himself into Sheev’s robes as if to hide. The elderly master lays a hand on his furry head and gives his ears a light scratch for comfort. “Now children, now we build a new Order, a new Empire. One to bring peace for a thousand years.” He says with a smile.
Good job creeping me out, dude!
Dammit, it’s so perfect though. Jedi!Palp is a nice guy but still a manipulative, power hungry little shit. Argh.
