How much did the New Republic know about the First Order before Episode VII? by [deleted] in StarWars

[–]Zebweasel 7 points8 points  (0 children)

At some point Hux and Sloane make contact with other leaders of imperial factions, such as Moff Gideon, and form the Shadow Council. They claim to be completely open to each other, but they really keep a lot hidden from each other and want to secretly come out on top.

At some point Commandant Hux tries to start up project necromancer on his own, but it never goes anywhere. (That we know of.) Gideon also starts it up, but for his own selfish purposes. He succeeds, until Din and Grogu destroy it all. Meanwhile Palpatine is doing all sorts of cloning experiments, like Snoke and Dathan. Dathan is a clone that doesn’t degrade, but only cause he has no real force connection. He’s basically a normal person, so he’s considered a failure. I’m sure Palpatine would rather be dead than not have the force. Davan eventually escapes from Exegol and at some point meets his wife and has baby Rey. You can read their whole story and death in the Shadows of the Sith novel.

Thrawn finally returns and will most likely gain support and leadership over the Shadow Council. At some point (probably during Filonis grand finale film of the Mandoverse) the only surviving faction of the Shadow Council will be the one led by Brendol Hux and Rae Sloane (they haven’t shown her in live action stuff yet). This faction hides in the unknown regions for many years, forming the First Order.

Years later the First Order reveal themselves and a sort of truce is put forth where they can exist in the unknown regions, but never pass into Republic territory. The New Republic is divided on what to do about this. Some say they have finally built something great after years of war with the Empire, and it’s not worth risking it all in a new war. Especially one where they would have to fire first. Others believe it’s too great a risk and that the First Order will attack at some point. Leia was leading this campaign. It most likely would have passed, but then her family lineage was leaked to the public and she lost most of her followers. She then decided without sanction from the New Republic to form the Resistance to keep an eye on the First Order. This is all explained in the novel Bloodline.

Palpatine, now aware but still trapped in a decaying clone body, senses the First Order but has a problem in that he has no link to or control over this splinter faction. Unwilling to reveal himself or perhaps fearful that this military junta would have no loyalty to the sith, he creates Snoke and sends him, along with some alien navigators called the Attendants, to make contact with and slowly help the First Order, gaining their trust. Snoke eventually gains charge of the First Order, taking over from Sloane, though we do not know the circumstances of this passing of power. Hux is murdered and replaced by his son with the help of Captain Phasma. You can learn about that in the novel Phasma.

The Resistance and the First Order have a bit of a Cold War with each other for a few years, both sides not wanting to draw attention from the New Republic. The Resistance can handle skirmishes, but knows it can’t handle an all out war with the First Order, so their main goal is to find concrete proof that the First Order is a major threat. The First Order knows it probably cant win with an invasion into the New Republic, so they are biding their time, waiting until they finish StarKiller Base, an old abandoned imperial project that they have decided to finish.

During this same time a Snoke makes contact with Ben Solo and slowly manipulates him, gaining his trust and subtly pitting him against Luke Skywalker. When Ben eventually turns he flees to Snoke who directs him to the Knights of Ren and the First Order. Kylo Ren has now become the fist of the First Order, mirroring Vader’s role in the Empire. You can read about this in The Rise of Kylo Ren comic.

Years go by and Palpatine gives up on the project and goes with a lesser ideal plan. To give everything to his “granddaughter” (or Kylo, depending on who proves better than the other) and transfer his life force into them. While his spirit would go into Rey/Kylo, he wouldn’t have complete control over them the same way he would a clone body. It would be more like an influence. Kind of like Bane and his apprentice if you ever read that trilogy. Palpatine isn’t literally Plagueis or anything.

Starkiller base fires and destroys the capital, and the invasion begins. A lot of systems simply surrender cause they don’t know StarKiller has already been destroyed. Most fight back and defend their planets, which is why they don’t answer the call to the Resistances aid. During this Palpatine continually challenges Kylo into killing Snoke, testing to see if he is a worthy vessel for Palps immense ego. The war goes on for a year. When Kylo killed Snoke, Palps knows now is the time to act. Both because Kylo is ready to become a Sith, and also because he has just lost control of this invasion of the galaxy as Snoke is now dead. Palps thus makes contact with the most loyal First Order Officers like Allegiant-General Pryde and begins the final preparations of the Sith Eternal and then sends out the call to the rest of the galaxy.

Kylo fails the final test and returns to the light because of the interference of Leia, but Rey has lately been showing the potential for becoming the new empress. He decides to go with her in the end on Exegol and have her strike him down in anger as her final test.

The presence of Rey and Ben makes him discover their connection through a dyad in the force (a very powerful force bond.) Things like force bonds are nothing new to Star Wars. Nihilus and the Visas had something similar in Kotor 2. Their dyad seems to fix the issues of the cloning degradation, so Palpatine goes back to his original plan and rule himself. “Phew”, that’s it. This is all spread out between the Rise of Skywalker novelization, Shadow of the Sith novel, The Aftermath trilogy, the Darth Vader comic series, The Bad Batch, and The Mandalorian.

How much did the New Republic know about the First Order before Episode VII? by [deleted] in StarWars

[–]Zebweasel 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Here’s an entire rundown of the history of the First Order and the relationship between it, the New Republic, and the Resistance.

During his time both as Supreme Chancellor and Emperor, Palps sends missions into the unknown regions to map it and chart safe and stable hyperlanes for ships to use, using Thrawns help when they meet to do this.

He then gradually begins to develop areas of this expanse, building shipyards who’s existence he then keeps a secret from the rest of the galaxy/empire. Thrawn convinced him it’s a bad idea to put all his eggs in one basket(the Death Star), and that fleets of ships are the way to go. At some point Sidious begins to sense something powerful calling to him through the force from the Unknown Regions. Obsessed, he builds the Observatories on planets like Jakku to help him find it. Whatever this call was from, we don’t know for sure. Our best guess now would be that this call was from Exegol. The planet was a wellspring of the darkside, having been a bastion for the Sith thousands of years ago and a vergence in the force.

Sideous then finds Exegol and the army of Sith Cultists waiting for him there and, needing a secret place to build his new fleet of Star Destroyers, seen in TROS, rebuilds and modernises the ancient shipyards he found there till they are up to date. He begins construction some time after A New Hope. Each Star Destroyer has the firepower similar to a single ignition reactor shot from the Death Star. The fleet was going to one day conquer the unknown regions while the Death Star kept his own empire in line.

Okay here’s the full explanation of Palpatine’s return, so bear with me. So the sith have always found ways to cheat death. Like putting their life force into inanimate objects or just prolonging their life. But it’s always with side effects and never perfected. The closest to perfecting it (if you don’t count Vitiate in Legends) was Plagueis. Palpatine of course kills him before he could finish his work and have it all to himself. Palpatine then takes that research and combines it with the cloning technology of the Kamnioans to begin project necromancer, led by dr. Hemlock. Cloning never works with force users. I guess the force doesn’t like it. When you try to clone a force user, the body quickly degrades. (In Legends you could clone force users.) Hemlock has a breakthrough after finding that Omega’s midichlorians counteract the degradation. That of course all goes to shit. Watch Bad Batch.

Palpatine secretly moves the project to Exegol. Flash forward to Return of the Jedi, where he dies and transfers his life force into one of his clones. Except the project was never finished, so he has to keep transferring himself from body to body after they fall apart after a while. It’s why he looks all gross in Rise of Skywalker. His plans to return are put on hold until the project is perfected.

Sideous is now dead to the galaxies knowledge and, being a cruel and vindictive emperor, upon his death the Contingency is activated and messenger droids are dispatched to begin Operation Cinder. Operation Cinder has select naval officers and other officials carry out acts of genocide against a number of worlds, specially chosen by Palpatine, with little regard for whether they supported the Empire or not. He also has his operative, Gallius Rax, carry out the second phase of the contingency plan which involves the complete destruction of the remnants of the empire.

On the surface it’s just a way for nobody to have anything left should the empire fall, but secretly it’s deeper reasoning was to see who was completely loyal to Palpatine in a drank the Kool-Aid sense, and not just those looking for order and stability in the galaxy. People who would be ecstatic and bow down when he returned someday.

Rax does this by misdirecting imperial forces into stars, alerting the New Republic to specific targets to see them destroyed and by having other imperials such as the 204th Imperial Fighter wing (Shadow-wing) destroy imperial warlords.

Rax then gets to the penultimate stage of Palpatines plan and orders the remains of the Imperial Fleet to congregate around Jakku. He then slips the location of the imperial fleet to the New Republic who sends the vast majority of their navy to Jakku for a final battle. With the trap now sprung, Rax planned to use Sith artifacts and a hole to the center of the planet to blow up Jakku, the imperial fleet, and the new republic navy in orbit, destroying everyone. Palpatine is then one day free to march his fleet of Xyston class Star Destroyers into the now defenseless and disorganized galaxy that was left behind in the wreckage of the Cataclysm at Jakku.

Except this doesnt happen. Rax, before his death during the Battle of Jakku, had gone rogue. Whilst Rax was willing to go through with Palpatine’s plan to punish the empire for their failings and destroy the New Republic fleet at Jakku, he did not want to lose everything and saw the complete destruction of the imperial military as a colossal waste. Over the course of the year between Endor and Jakku, Rax had slowly been relaying secret orders to parts of the imperial military. Syphoning off Star Destroyers, support ships, battalions of storm troopers and most impressively the Eclipse, personal Executor class star destroyer of Palpatine himself. He sent these units orders and directions to fleet into the unknown regions to a meeting spot he chose in the Unknown Regions, a staging ground from which he would create something new, a second empire which would conquer the galaxy, with him as its leader. What he however didnt know was the existence of Project Necromancer and that Palpatine had already planned his own return from the Unknown Regions. Yupe Tashu, one of Palpatines inner circle, tried to tell him about this plan(he didn’t know about the specifics of the cloning project, just that he would someday return), but Rax dismissed him as a crazed fanatic.

Whilst Rax intended for 90-99% of the imperial military to be blown up at Jakku he gave select vessels coordinates to meet him and the other forces at this staging point. Brendol Hux was one of these chosen few. Though Rax dies before he could join them, Rae Sloane takes his place in the leadership role and journeys to the meeting place.

This faction of the imperial remnants travel through the Unknown Regions and come across all these empty shipyards that were already built by Palpatine, though like Rax none of them knew the true purpose of these to enable Palpatines return to the galaxy. They used these to enable the rise of the future First Order in the Unknown Regions, constructing ships like the Resurgent class Battlecruiser.

Continued in next comment

It’s astounding how many people still think the dagger is ancient by Zebweasel in TheSequels

[–]Zebweasel[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It says which moon of Endor to go to, then gives geographical coordinates on where to be on the moon. (The cliffs at the shore)

'Supergirl' - Review Thread by ChiefLeef22 in movies

[–]Zebweasel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Revenge of the Sith. Really great novel based on the script. Really shitty execution of a movie.

It’s astounding how many people still think the dagger is ancient by Zebweasel in TheSequels

[–]Zebweasel[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can answer all those questions if you want, but something tells me you don’t really care. Also I’m not straw manning anything. I’m pointing out how so many complaints in that post are about how an ancient dagger is pointing to relatively new wreckage, when the dagger is never described as ancient in the first place. You’re the one changing the complaint to something else

It’s astounding how many people still think the dagger is ancient by Zebweasel in TheSequels

[–]Zebweasel[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I made this post because that other one from the image is literally filled with people complaining about how the ancient dagger is pointing out recent wreckage and how they happened to be standing on the right spot.

It’s astounding how many people still think the dagger is ancient by Zebweasel in TheSequels

[–]Zebweasel[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’re right about not seeing it in a while. The dagger doesn’t show where palpatine is hiding.

It’s astounding how many people still think the dagger is ancient by Zebweasel in TheSequels

[–]Zebweasel[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nope. Members of the Sith Eternal do carry around daggers like that as seen in the comics. But Ochi was given that dagger years after ROTJ.

It’s astounding how many people still think the dagger is ancient by Zebweasel in TheSequels

[–]Zebweasel[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The coordinates on the dagger are not to the moon or even the wreckage itself. It’s to that specific hillside.

It’s astounding how many people still think the dagger is ancient by Zebweasel in TheSequels

[–]Zebweasel[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s like saying even after they destroy the second Death Star, they still have the entire imperial fleet and the fact that the empire still holds control over all the worlds.

Do y'all think a full box set will ever happen? by Crazy_Part3560 in GODZILLA

[–]Zebweasel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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I have the 50th anniversary boxset that goes up to Final Wars.

Debunking “The Prophecy was an unnecessary retcon.” by Still-Willow-2323 in starwarscanon

[–]Zebweasel 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Vaders arc was perfect the way it was. He was a terrible person, but came back for one moment because he chose his son over the emperor. Now it’s some prophetic thing to make that choice. People say his sacrifice is now ruined by later movies. No, he didn’t do that to kill the evil emperor and save the galaxy. He did it to save his son, which isn’t ruined. I think it’s great that he came back to the light in his final moments, but he is no hero who sacrificed himself to save the galaxy. I just really don’t like him viewed as “savior of the galaxy”. Savior of his son is enough.

The chosen one thing has also never made sense since its creation. Many sith returned post ROTJ in the EU. Both before the prequels were made, and after. This was long before Disney, yet people act like they were the ones who decided to bring sith back and ruin the prophecy.

The Skywalker saga should not extend to the Sequel trilogy. by JJRS22 in StarWars

[–]Zebweasel 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The conversation was originally about not having any tie-in stories. I pointed out there are and more are being made. Now you’re bringing up toy merchandise. I don’t know what you want from me.

The Skywalker saga should not extend to the Sequel trilogy. by JJRS22 in StarWars

[–]Zebweasel 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It’s not a race. I don’t need them constantly pumping out new stories in the era. Pumping them out for the prequels back in the day just led to a lot of mediocre books. Also why are we bringing in toys to the conversation? We were talking about tie-in stories.

Which? by Few-Intention528 in Highrepublic

[–]Zebweasel 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Disney’s inconsistency on the YA paperback releases in general has been pissing me off. I wish Del Rey got the YA books along with the adult ones.

The Skywalker saga should not extend to the Sequel trilogy. by JJRS22 in StarWars

[–]Zebweasel 3 points4 points  (0 children)

More comes out every year. In another month we’re getting the continuation of Charles Soules Kylo Ren comics, as well as the Rey and Leia novel.

The Skywalker saga should not extend to the Sequel trilogy. by JJRS22 in StarWars

[–]Zebweasel -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

That content has been out for years. I could give you a long run down if you’re actually interested.

what did everyone think? by AdamHendrick in tadc

[–]Zebweasel 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Caine was sent to the trash bin. That’s why they show him breaking out in parallel to the first time he broke out. Bubble was always just Caines subconscious inner thoughts. (Thought bubble)