Sheev Palpatine - Tumblr Posts
Guys…there’s still one major cameo from the Bad Batch season 3 trailer that has still yet to make an appearance…
The title for 3x09 is “The Harbinger,” the definition being “a person or thing that shows that something is going to happen soon, especially something bad.”
Ventress found Omega with no trouble (most likely with the Force, but still) and warned the batch that they needed to leave Pabu because they weren’t safe there.
This is obviously foreshadowing that someone is going to attempt to bring Omega back to Hemlock as an M-count target.
If there’s one bounty hunter in the whole galaxy audacious enough to attempt this job (and be successful) it’s Cad Bane.
It wouldn’t be the first time he stole force sensitive children for Palpatine…
It wouldn’t even the first time he would be kidnapping Omega either…
Force sensitive children seem to be his specialty. I’d bet on him being the one.
If you have your doubts about how dangerous he is, remember that he was the one that broke Ziro the Hutt out of prison, held the Galactic Senate and Anakin Skywalker hostage, broke into the Jedi Temple on Coruscant to steal a Holocron, held Ahsoka hostage and manipulated Anakin into opening and giving him the Holocron to save her life, kidnapped force sensitive children for Palpatine’s evil experiments and brought them to Mustafar, fought Obiwan Kenobi with Quinlan Vos’ lightsaber, and orchestrated a prison break and escaped through the morgue.
Cad Bane does not fuck around people!! He is dangerous, he’s experienced, and the groundwork has been laid. Be scared!
order 66 didn’t happen if you au hard enough
This is the funnest expression ever pulled in all of starwars history
In Which Fox Arrests His Boss
(Context: while reading Twilight on Owl Creek Bridge by @theinternationalacestation today, I got to thinking about the specific Fascist Extreme Military Police Laws mentioned in the fic. That fic is, however, much more tragic and dark than what I'm slapping onto tumblr today, as well as significantly more polished.)
So, we all love a fic where Fox gets to ruin Palpatine's plans. Let's hop in:
Fox can, theoretically, arrest anyone on vague late-Republic fascist law premises.
Being arrested, theoretically, strips the Chancellor of his power as head of the army, if only temporarily.
The chips could respond more directly to his position (Supreme Commander of the GAR) rather than his specific voice.
Suggestion (that has no doubt been played out by other authors before):
Fox arrests Palpatine for vague fascist military police reasons. Ostensibly, it's about taxes. Palpatine attempts to use a chip order. It doesn't work. Any clone that has been informed of his arrest is no longer susceptible to his control. He can't comm out to those who haven't heard unless he mindtricks the guards into letting him out. He sees them pulling out the Force Cuffs and digs out his sabers because fuck this, actually.
At some point Senators, Anakin, various people: You can't just arrest the Chancellor! Fox: I'm the commander of the Coruscant Guard. I can arrest anyone.
Fox, after Palpatine is out of the way, orders a search and seizure of his office and WOW is all this sketchy, huh guys?
"You can't do that without a warrant--" "Wartime regulations, you voted them in three weeks ago. I absolutely can."
From @atagotiak on discord:
“Literally anyone. For any reason. It’s a little fucked up, if you think about it”
"Legally, I can kind of do whatever I want unless the government stops me, and unfortunately for Palpatine, he's had me doing his paperwork for a year and a half, and I closed up the loopholes that let people stop me from arresting him. You need a month-long trial to censure me, and I'm still in my position until then. He really should not have let me edit bills for him."
"A change in power will slow down the war and get people killed!" "I was already doing most of his work for him, it won't change that much."
The month-long trial can't start until their investigation into Palpatine's paperwork is over. This, in itself, takes at least a few weeks. Fox just wanted to cause some problems.
Just. It's very "You can't do that, you're a clone!" "Well... you voted for the 'military police can invade your privacy and arrest without reasonable cause for the war effort' bill. I'm confused as to why you're complaining that I'm now invading someone's privacy and arresting them without reasonable cause in direct relation to the war effort. You voted for me to do that." "Not to us!" "Well, then you should have specified."
Tigers eating faces meme, etc
It's funny if Fox already knows the Chancellor is a Sith Lord, but it's even funnier if he's just really fed up and doing it because he might as well do something fun before he dies.
Fox, afterwards: He's politician-evil, so I wanted to see if I could get away with this legally, which I can, and if I could find evidence of treason in his office, which wow. Yeah. I sure did.
Tia:
“Idk he seemed pretty sketch and I thought I might as well. Idk what the big deal is, he’s the one that gave me all this power in the first place.”
There's a memo to the entire GAR, reading:
There is now a warrant out for the arrest of Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine. Until further notice, all orders from this individual are to be disregarded.
Fox sends out the memo a few minutes before he arrests Sheev. Makes sure it's marked emergency so it gets to people before Sheev himself does. Fox might bring along a Jedi just in case the personal not-clone guards that Sheev has are more personally loyal (paid more) than an arrest order.
Fox: If I do this, I'm definitely getting disappeared as soon as he has his stupid throne back, but it'll be funny as hell and we're all going to feel so much satisfaction from it. Palpatine: [outs himself as a Sith Lord] Fox: ...huh. Not getting disappeared, I guess.
Fox just completely screws up Sidious's day
If anyone (the media, who have realized at some point that Fox is running half the Chancellor's office) asks him about the effects this has on the war effort he points out that all the major strategic work is being done by the Jedi and they are more than competent without the Chancellor.
(Whether or not he believes what he's saying is irrelevant. He trusts his brothers to be competent when the Jedi aren't.)
Tia:
Honestly they're arguably more competent without him. Which like, hey, in hindsight...
Oh, they absolutely are! But there's "I'm going to get disappeared for actually making this work" and "tempting fate by telling everyone the Chancellor's a nerfherder."
"Get the Chancellor out of the way for a few weeks and maybe the Jedi and brothers can get something done" is actually his driving motivation to do this.
He wouldn't necessarily completely destroy his own life and endanger many of his brothers just to piss off Sidious for a few weeks. Possibly speeding up the war by temporarily removing someone he knows is slowing down the war and getting brothers killed en masse, whether through incompetence or maliciousness? That's worth getting himself executed, tortured, or whatever the hell else is going to happen.
Tia:
I wonder if there’s laws about lightsabers or at least laws about red ones Not that it matters as much as all the other crap, but.
I imagine there's at least a "you must have a license/declare it/have paperwork of ownership" thing going on Which is easily obtained and streamlined for Jedi, somewhat less streamlined for museums, obscure and politically complicated for the darksaber, and incredibly difficult to procure for private collections.
Tia:
Palpatine probably could’ve had a lightsaber officially, he’s powerful enough to get all that paperwork pushed through. But he didn’t want anyone to know he had lightsabers, probably. Honestly I brought up the lightsaber thing because it fits the real fun “busted for tax evasion” vibe of some Palpatine things. Though of course, there are other, different things they find later
He had three vintage Jedi sabers in a collection back on Naboo, and he has paperwork for those, but he does not have a license to carry or a declaration of ownership for the ones on his person, or to have any of this on Coruscant.
Tia:
“So this worked out for the best. I guess those laws are… ok?” Fox, who ended up in the Coruscant Guard partly because he actually paid attention to his civics modules: that is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard
Anakin would probably agree with that logic if he wasn't having an absolute breakdown on the other side of the galaxy.
(Fox absolutely timed this so Anakin would not be here for it.)
I just love the idea of things backfiring in stupid ways.
FOX CAN REVOKE PALPATINE'S SECURITY CLEARANCES
Tia:
The order wouldn't work if he managed to send it out but also he can't because his comm won't recognize his face id so he can't use it. One thing I really enjoy with this and stuff like @nevertheless-moving's "just kill him au" is the whole "Wait, I thought he was just regular-evil!"
Final note: I haven't read Discworld but I absolutely had "Vimes arrests both armies for disturbing the peace" posts on my mind writing this.
Old and new drawings
Still on my clone wars bullshit
THE WAY IT CUTS OFF AT THE END IS SENDING ME
Always liked this quote from Darth Plagueis, also the fact he was trapped with their bodies until he was retrieved is awesome. I love it when he experiences the horrors.
medieval star wars by jake bartok - prequels era + rebels + rogue one
it's even better then I imagined
You know if Mace Windu had just used la chancla against Palpatine order 66 would never have happened (love your art very cute)
Fascist old man gets decked with ancient human disciplinary technique
(Thank you 💜)
Fiction writer's hard-on for the name "Brian"
If I had a nickel for every time a fucked up old dude in a fandom I follow had the name "Brian" sandwiched between a bunch of latin nonsense for his full given name, I'd have two nickels, which isn't that many but it's weird it happened twice.
I'm going to be a heretic and say that the Jedi's problem wasn't that they were involved the Senate, it was that they weren't involved enough in the Senate. The Jedi should have moved out to the Unknown Regions if they didn't want to deal with the responsibilities of the Republic. They should have involved in politics by voting for leaders, running for election and utilizing their representation to push for their interests and agenda.
"but they didn't want to be involved-" look here people, you do not choose to get involved in politics. Politics involves everyone; you have a choice to play or not play. There is no option to opt out. By not playing, you forfeit the game to your opponents, and you lose before you begin.
That's how Palpatine wins. He sets the game, and the Jedi forfeit; they were doomed to lose from the start.
palpatine is just an embodiment of modern government.
This is in no way an endorsement of Palpatine, but the premise of his crimes is so weird to me.
Like, the most evil guy in existence's crimes are:
Using the power of his negative emotions to practice a cult religion
Puppeteering a war between two factions in the galaxy to install a takeover
Committing genocide
Installing himself as a monarch/dictator (they call him an Emperor, and he rules an empire; wouldn't he be a monarch?)
Assorted war crimes (i can't remember them all)
None of these things, except the first one, are things that literally any government on this planet hasn't done.
The US government? Puppeteered plenty of wars.
The US government? Has committed genocide.
The US government? Has committed plenty of war crimes in other wars with state approval.
The US may not have become an empire, but there are plenty of regimes in other countries and throughout history where rulers seize power and declare themselves rulers: Napoleon, Caesar, even more recently like the Kims of North Korea.
It's just so tragic. Modern government is the bad guy in the Star Wars prequels; the embodiment of modern government is literally cartoon evil. Isn't that lovely?
palpatine is just an embodiment of modern government.
This is probably elaborated on a lot more in detailed meta, but for all of the shit that Lucas has pulled and all of his questionable decisions, Palpatine is probably his greatest triumph as a villain within narrative. Yes, he is absolutely a cartoon with no redeeming qualities, and Anakin definitely has a more dynamic character arc, but it's still incredible.
Star Wars as a franchise is associated with war and wartime: laser sword battles, epic forbidden romance, last stand trench runs against powerful enemies. It's all action, stylized violence and "rule of cool." There is good character writing and plot of course, but the public perception of Star Wars as a whole is about the cool space wizards and laser guns.
So it's absolutely curious that Lucas, in a trilogy that he said was geared towards children, had his villain do none of the things that made Star Wars so famous. Palpatine never fought ever. Except in Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine's horrible crimes all stemmed from his politics, and his cunning. Part of the Jedi's blindness to Sidious was that he was playing them on a field that they didn't expect: politics.
The Jedi are not politicians, nor have any interest in politics; the movies make this painfully clear. (The fact that the Council just goes and attempts to execute Palpatine, a popular leader who was "democratically" elected-I will give the Jedi credit; Palpatine is a monster, and killing him then and there was probably necessary- shows that there aren't the most politically minded) Palpatine literally does more damage to the entire galaxy that has repercussions for a generation- seriously, people like Biggs probably lived and died within the Empire- than Anakin could ever do during Operation: Knightfall or even as his tenure as Vader. And the Jedi can't do anything to stop it because they refused to play the game. In fact, one could make the argument that refusing to play only meant that Palpatine could carry out his agenda even faster.
It's almost like the bad guy won because any damage wreaked by an army of space wizards can be done a thousandfold by one politician. And it's like the lesson is that if you turn a blind eye to the injustices in your government, the corruption festers until it turns into something unspeakably horrid, and by then it'll be too late.
That's something to think about.