An alternate look on Palpatine

[Yellow 13]

It's said that everyone is the hero of their own story. I dunno if this has been confrimed at all, but it's a fan theory that I've been toying with.

Our story begins with Palpatine himself as a young force sensitive. Through the will of the force, it's entirely possible that he sensed a gigantic void in the force on one side of the galaxy, slowly closing in. The Yhuzong Vong. He knew he had multiple decades and a whole life to plan for this, and plan he did, getting ready to militarize the entire galaxy. Moving into politics, he formulated plans and set into motion events. Becoming the pupil of Darth Plagus who helped him confirm his suspicions.

As his plans grew to fruition, he began getting corrupted by the dark side, skewing his once noble goal of militarizing the galaxy for the preparation of the Yhuzzon Vong invasion.

I'm not sure if there's any evidence to support this, but if Thrawn knew about it, then a legendarily powerful sith lord could probably have sensed this gigantic void in the force advancing on them. maybe. Still, if this is the case, it's a nice little alternate character interpretation.

[Pali]

The EU/Legends most definitely has Palpatine knowing about the Vong invasion, many years before the Clone Wars began, and he explicitly justifies his actions by this foreknowledge at least once that I know of.

And since only a Sith would've created the Empire and militarized the galaxy so that it would've been ready for the Vong, I'm not sure the dark side corrupted him on that count (or any other - Palps was down with his inner darkness well before he started getting Force training).  His only mistake was his somewhat blind trust in Vader - had Vader not done the "right" thing and saved Luke, the galaxy would've remained under Imperial control, Palpatine would've had another two decades to build up forces, and the Vong would've been crushed the moment they showed up, saving hundreds of trillions of lives.

So the Vong invasion is really the fault of the good guys.

[Lord Xizer]

Well, yes and no. Palpatine knew about the vong all right, but he was also a complete psychopath and utterly devoted to only HIS power and glory. He saw the vong as a possible threat to his own future rule. Those extra 2 decades may well have seen him continue down the dark empire line of thought, ambitious and ruthless governors and admirals would have still schemed and sooner or later one of the crushed masses he tyrannically oppressed would have either ousted, killed or at least destabilize his rule. He might well have become a worse threat than the vong if left to his own desires.

[Pali]

I like to think Thrawn would've gotten rid of him at some point.

[Yellow 13]

interesting. Still, just a fun little theory i was playing around with. Sure Palpy was coocoo for cocopuffs, BUT the Vong invasion would have been stopped so... Winning?

[Pali]

interesting. Still, just a fun little theory i was playing around with. Sure Palpy was coocoo for cocopuffs, BUT the Vong invasion would have been stopped so... Winning?

Well, as Xizer pointed out, the scenario I described above would not have been a guaranteed one.  However, that viewpoint is aired a bit in later books, largely by people who don't like Jedi.  I'm not sure I'd describe Palpatine as insane, but he was definitely focused purely on his own power, and while he may have sometimes justified his actions to others on such threats as the Vong or the Separatists, all of that was really just intended to get useful people working the way he wanted them to.

So, would the Rebellion failing have prevented the Vong invasion from killing trillions?  Maybe.  But other factors need to be considered when judging Palpatine's actions as well.  On the hypothetical side, what if Palpatine had stopped the Vong, but later turned into something like Darth Nihlus, and ended up draining the galaxy dry of life to feed his own hunger for immortality through the dark side - or if he would have used the dark side to essentially turn most beings into living extensions of his will, such as the Joruus C'boath clone was beginning to do?  On the philosophical side, does oppressing trillions in order to save their lives justify the oppression (particularly if the oppressor won't stop oppressing once the threat has been dealt with), or should those beings have the right to determine their own fates, even if they end up dragging themselves or others to their doom?

One of the main things I liked about the character of Thrawn is that he spurs thought: he was a good guy, a character devoted to honor and service, who decided that the answer to the second question was yes - one is justified in imposing his will upon others to save them, to save civilization as it is known.  I don't fully agree with that position... but I also don't know exactly how far my disagreement extends, nor does our actual society.  We prevent people from harming themselves on the grounds that they are not capable of recognizing the consequences of their actions - unlike Palpatine, Thrawn truly was operating under an extension of this principle, and he makes me wonder how far I think it should go.