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Darth Sidious, Emperor Palpatine, Dark Lord of the Sith. All are titles bestowed upon Palpatine by the time ROTJ begins, and all are certainly fitting. However, the question arises as to what would have happened after he died, either at the hands of someone under him or simple old age. Assuming the Rebel Alliance doesn't win at Endor and is still a threat, what would happen at the end?

Clones of the Emperor
Palpatine has been shown in several comics to have clones of himself waiting around for his eventual demise. This sounds perfect, since he can transfer his existence into any of them, but how does he explain it to the galactic populus? Does he even try? He has a brand new body, and no doubt feel a few things he hasn't felt in years, such as attraction to someone. This might leave him vulnerable. Plus, I thought that entire story line a little convoluted, so I'm going to say unlikely.

Vader becomes the Dark Lord
Most people claim that Darth Vader is a Dark Lord of the Sith. However, I found a quote in a later novel that has to do with a key aspect of Darth Sidious' power.

Lumiya to Jacen Solo wrote:"This is the ultimate test of selflessness—whether you're ready to face unending emotional pain, true agony, to gain the power to create peace and order for billions of total strangers. That is the sacrifice. To be vilified by others, by people you know and care for, and for your personal sacrifice to be totally unknown to those billions you save, to do your duty as a Sith. To do your duty for the good of the galaxy."

Afterwords, Darth Caedus was able to see the future, much like Sidious. Vader is never seen having these abilities, meaning he would be forced to rely solely on his own judgement. While not a bad thing, it would still be difficult for him following in the wake of Sidious. Plus, he would need to train an apprentice of his own from that point.

Mara Jade becomes Empress
Assuming Vader doesn't take the reigns himself, Mara Jade might be a viable candidate. She was the Emperor's Hand, and knew things that even the Grand Admirals didn't know. Whether she would use that knowledge to become Empress or to simply support the next Emperor, however, is unknown. Probably assisting the new Emperor.

A Grand Admiral receives a promotion
The Grand Admirals were the ones tasked by the Emperor and Vader to oversee special military operations, the most well known of course being Thrawn. Thrawn was a skilled manipulator, understanding what makes people think and act. He could easily carve up the Empire or trick people into doing what he wanted, assuming he was even allowed close. As an alien, he might be shunned or even removed from power. I doubt, however, that Thrawn would just go slinking off into the darkness.

A Moff elevates himself above his contemporaries
The Moff council was intended to be a replacement for the Senate, with the Moffs meeting and discussing important events as they served as military governors. Their role seemed to be the day to day government affairs for planets, and thus one would no doubt seek to get himself elected to the role of Emperor. He would face opposition, since like any group of politicians there would be underhanded tactics thrown about, but from a civilian perspective, it would be the most likely.

The Empire collapses into chaos
The entire Empire is a large place. Much too large to be held together by a tiny organization such as the Rebel Alliance. Many of the books talk of the Empire collapsing, mostly due to the chain of command becoming cloudy and confusing. Some admirals become warlords, governors take over as moffs of their own little worlds. The Alliance might one day reunite the galaxy, but it would be much harder since the Rebels would either be working with even less equipment (if they lost at Endor but a few escaped), or they wouldn't have their reputation (if they didn't go to Endor).

The last or the first.
If I recall correctly Palpatine/Sidious supposedly built the entire structure of the Empire in such a way that it will collapse without him.
So either he would put him self into a clone and proclaim that it is his son/elected heir/what ever or the empire falls apart like a house of cards.

Since his whole plan was to become immortal, I doubt he cared.

Grand Vizier Sate Pestage or one of the Advisors, such as Ars Dangor, would be in a pretty good position to angle for the throne. Aristocrats like Baron Tagge could be possible candidates as well.

Baffalo wrote: Clones of the Emperor

This was the eventual plan.

Afterwords, Darth Caedus was able to see the future, much like Sidious. Vader is never seen having these abilities, meaning he would be forced to rely solely on his own judgement.

You mean he never saw a vision of his mother or wife's death? He was doing that without any training, Sidious had over time developed his ability to manipulate future events, given time and opportunity Vader could have as well. However Vader was never quite interested in politics and bueaucracy, and had he become Emperor he would have delegated much of the responsibility onto others.

In the EU, clones and body transferring were the plan. Even in the movies, Sidious clearly planned to achieve immortality by Plagueis's methods. He did show signs of entertaining the idea of Anakin succeeding him ("Lord Vader will be stronger than either of us!"), but I think that was a backup in case the worst happened.

Palpatine's exact plans remain a bit uncertain. He had been experimenting with the clone transfer process for many years. On the other hand, his inner monolouge in Return of the Jedi's novelization seems to suggest he was fairly content with his present position and most of his actions throughout ROTJ indicate he was following the Sith tradition of cultivating a strong apprentice and successor. It's also been established his death at Endor was the first time, so it's possible he was not willing to risk his life until events gave him no alternative.

Assuming he died and was gone for good, there is no obvious successor to replace him, but much of the violence and chaos might be avoided, since Palpatine will not be around to sabotage the succession through proxies like Pestage. The most likely contenders are, at least for de facto power, Vader or the privy council. Pestage and his colleagues already ran the state day-to-day, but Vader has some political acumen and the convenient Supreme Commander title with which he might rally the military. One of Palpatine's distant relatives could also be raised to the throne, most likely if Pestage and the privy council won out.

There are several factions:

- The Moffs who control most of the space and also have vast fleets under their command, some of them even fielding private fleets
- The Imperial Navy
- The Grand Admirals (who actually were outside the normal chain of command and whose success would rely on personal connections as well as personal authority)
- Vader, who at least could call on Death Squadron
- Imperial Intelligence (Isard wants power and in the OTL was strong enough to get it against both the Moffs and the Privy council)
- The Privy Council

Wildcards: Compnor


As we have seen, it all depends on who holds Coruscant. Thus, I would give it to the Imperial Navy, Imperial Intelligence or the Privy Council and maybe Vader, but the latter's success is dependent on how fast he can get to Imperial Center.

As for Thrawn, he would not make a direct play for power, not unless there would be enough moff support.

Was Ysanne Isard in charge of Imperial Intelligence when the Emperor died or was her father still running it? I'm not sure she'd try an end-run around him without the fairly severe chaos on Coruscant following the civil war there, and the awareness that she could probably wrest control from whoever held it.

It's my understanding that she had her father killed well before the battle of Endor

Interesting questions, certainly.

But, I do fail to understand how you say that Vader does not have the gift of foresight. All through out the prequils he, constantly, relies on them. He sees Padme's death and his Mom's.

I know that the plan was for the Emperor to clone himself and move to one of those bodies. I do wonder if, based upon the way he died, if he had time to do that. If so...he's still the man!!!

The whole Clone-of-Palpatine thing always struck me as kind of silly, to be honest.

I have a hard time reconciling a "clean succession" with the end of Return of the Jedi, though, anyway.

If I work just from Star Wars, it seems reasonably likely that there is an Imperial Family or some kind of succession plan in place. Vader doesn't even seem like a candidate to me because in Star Wars he is subordinate to Tarkin (who is "holding his leash').

Adding Empire Strikes Back into the mix, and Emperor Vader starts to look feasible, though probably by way of coup rather than selected succession. Starting a new imperial dynasty is his pitch to Luke, after all, which doesn't really paint him as having an inside-track to the throne without treachery.

In Return of the Jedi Vader actually does look like the heir apparent. Palpatine's pitch to Luke was, again, the Imperial throne, but this time it seemed like Luke would be bypassing Vader's otherwise-assured place in line to get there.

Having seen what we saw in RotJ, if the Rebels hadn't won and Luke had been killed, I guess Vader is the next Emperor. Putting aside RotJ, and I think it's some unseen character, either a blood relative of Palpatine or some Moff or other.

darkwolf29a wrote:I know that the plan was for the Emperor to clone himself and move to one of those bodies. I do wonder if, based upon the way he died, if he had time to do that. If so...he's still the man!!!

Never heard of Dark Empire?

Y'all forgetting Jerec and the Inquisitorius. Aside from the Emperor's Hands/Eyes/etc., they were the premiere Dark Siders of the regime, I believe.

Battlehymn Republic wrote:Y'all forgetting Jerec and the Inquisitorius. Aside from the Emperor's Hands/Eyes/etc., they were the premiere Dark Siders of the regime, I believe.

Nobody is forgetting anything, but jerec never amounted to much until the Empire had already been defeated. Aside from his ship, he got no powerbase.

Eframepilot wrote:In the EU, clones and body transferring were the plan. Even in the movies, Sidious clearly planned to achieve immortality by Plagueis's methods. He did show signs of entertaining the idea of Anakin succeeding him ("Lord Vader will be stronger than either of us!"), but I think that was a backup in case the worst happened.

I don't know about that. I think Palpatine was counting on Vader killing him just as he killed Pagueis because that's the Sith way. It was only after Anakin got crippled and his force growth stunted that Palpatine was put in the dilemna that Vader could never overcome him, thus shitting on Sith tradition, so here is plan B. I become immortal through clones and transference.

In a way you can look at Palpatine's insanity near the end of his reign as a consequence of not being killed. Perhaps one of the reason why this Sith tradition became what it is was partly to deal with crazy dark side users, you can't possibly channel hatred and anger for a lifetime and not become mentally unhinged so just when that might be an issue your apprentice sticks a lightsaber in your heart and starts the cycle anew.

Stravo wrote:

Eframepilot wrote:In the EU, clones and body transferring were the plan. Even in the movies, Sidious clearly planned to achieve immortality by Plagueis's methods. He did show signs of entertaining the idea of Anakin succeeding him ("Lord Vader will be stronger than either of us!"), but I think that was a backup in case the worst happened.

I don't know about that. I think Palpatine was counting on Vader killing him just as he killed Pagueis because that's the Sith way. It was only after Anakin got crippled and his force growth stunted that Palpatine was put in the dilemna that Vader could never overcome him, thus shitting on Sith tradition, so here is plan B. I become immortal through clones and transference.

In a way you can look at Palpatine's insanity near the end of his reign as a consequence of not being killed. Perhaps one of the reason why this Sith tradition became what it is was partly to deal with crazy dark side users, you can't possibly channel hatred and anger for a lifetime and not become mentally unhinged so just when that might be an issue your apprentice sticks a lightsaber in your heart and starts the cycle anew.

Was Palpatine really more insane in Episode VI than he was in Episode III, though? He displays all the same faults: risk-taking, using himself as bait, relying on Anakin to behave exactly as expected with his own life on the line. If anything, his plan in Episode VI was safer than his plan in Episode III. Or do you mean EU post-first-death Palpatine?

Wasn't Jerec one of Palpatine's most powerful Force-using minions? At least the most ambitious, I'd say. They both wanted apotheosis, though through different means. Who are the heavy hitters besides Vader? Let's not even talk about Force Unleashed.

Battlehymn Republic wrote:Wasn't Jerec one of Palpatine's most powerful Force-using minions? At least the most ambitious, I'd say. They both wanted apotheosis, though through different means. Who are the heavy hitters besides Vader? Let's not even talk about Force Unleashed.

The heavy hitter besides Vader are all non-force users. Being a force user is no prerequisite for ruling the emperor and arguably those non-force users have done better than the force users who did.

As painful as this will be for a lot of people to consider, but what if the Central Committee of Grand Moffs was able to successfully pretend Trioculus as son of Palpatine, thus creating a monarchy out of the Empire?

Battlehymn Republic wrote:As painful as this will be for a lot of people to consider, but what if the Central Committee of Grand Moffs was able to successfully pretend Trioculus as son of Palpatine, thus creating a monarchy out of the Empire?

Seeing as how it kinda was the last straw for the Moffs, I doubt they will have any more chances than they did in the OTL, especially considering there will be plenty of people around with the knowledge and power to expose the mutant.

Thanas wrote:

Battlehymn Republic wrote:Wasn't Jerec one of Palpatine's most powerful Force-using minions? At least the most ambitious, I'd say. They both wanted apotheosis, though through different means. Who are the heavy hitters besides Vader? Let's not even talk about Force Unleashed.

The heavy hitter besides Vader are all non-force users. Being a force user is no prerequisite for ruling the emperor and arguably those non-force users have done better than the force users who did.

The danger is that if you're not a force user, given the sheer number of ambitious Sith would-be galactic overlords Palpatine had cultivated, you're liable to wind up assassinated.

It's always a problem in SW for non-force users to control force users; witness the problems Thrawn had with Joruus C'Baoth in the Thrawn trilogy. And that was factoring in Thrawn's ability to create effective Force shielding to protect himself at all times- even so, he had trouble retaining control of his own forces as long as a dark Jedi was free to operate among them.

This makes the rule of any of the (many) competent non-Sith players in the Imperial power structure rather more unstable, if they're facing off against ambitious apprentices of Palpatine who were hoping to kill him and take his place if they could acquire the power to do so.