How many people during the Empire knew Palpatine was a Sith?

[Lord Revan]

We should also remember that Maul was in the Galactic scale a nobody before becoming the leader his crime syndicate. When Maul was discovered to be alive it was during the Clone Wars so any media independent from the Government would have been vary of publishing things that you considered to be "anti-republic propaganda" or "Separatist propaganda" so they would probably not published what Maul knows (he had no evidence as far as we know just his word), same with members of the Republic Hierarchy.


Only way Palpatine could screwed that up was to use disproportionate force(intended) to eliminate Maul, strike with Clone Commandos would reasonable against major CIS agent, Jedi at most, DBZ would be way out of proportions for the scale of threat (as far as an outsider knows) and people would ask why so drastic method was needed when such methods were not used against Dooku (leader of the CIS and a former Jedi master).

[bilateralrope]

Only way Palpatine could screwed that up was to use disproportionate force(intended) to eliminate Maul, strike with Clone Commandos would reasonable against major CIS agent, Jedi at most, DBZ would be way out of proportions for the scale of threat (as far as an outsider knows) and people would ask why so drastic method was needed when such methods were not used against Dooku (leader of the CIS and a former Jedi master).

Clone Commandos would probably be insufficient to deal with Maul. Enough that, if the Jedi know that Maul is the target, they will have questions about any attempt to send clones without Jedi assistance.

Jedi raise different problems. If Maul tries to tell them about Palpatine, the Jedi can use the Force to tell if Maul is lying. Even if the Jedi can't prove that to anyone else, it's going to complicate Order 66. So Palpatine would want to minimise Jedi contact with Maul, especially in circumstances that might make Maul think that Palpatine is trying to eliminate him. Palpatine can't afford to risk giving Maul a reason to share what he knows.

Getting CIS forces to eliminate Maul has less risk of Maul revealing anything incriminating. Droids can have their memory wiped, Dooku already knows about Palpatine. But that would still need a significant deployment of droids, which risks the Republic noticing and sending someone to investigate.

[Lord Revan]

Only way Palpatine could screwed that up was to use disproportionate force(intended) to eliminate Maul, strike with Clone Commandos would reasonable against major CIS agent, Jedi at most, DBZ would be way out of proportions for the scale of threat (as far as an outsider knows) and people would ask why so drastic method was needed when such methods were not used against Dooku (leader of the CIS and a former Jedi master).

Clone Commandos would probably be insufficient to deal with Maul. Enough that, if the Jedi know that Maul is the target, they will have questions about any attempt to send clones without Jedi assistance.

Jedi raise different problems. If Maul tries to tell them about Palpatine, the Jedi can use the Force to tell if Maul is lying. Even if the Jedi can't prove that to anyone else, it's going to complicate Order 66. So Palpatine would want to minimise Jedi contact with Maul, especially in circumstances that might make Maul think that Palpatine is trying to eliminate him. Palpatine can't afford to risk giving Maul a reason to share what he knows.

Getting CIS forces to eliminate Maul has less risk of Maul revealing anything incriminating. Droids can have their memory wiped, Dooku already knows about Palpatine. But that would still need a significant deployment of droids, which risks the Republic noticing and sending someone to investigate.

Yes obviously a response in proportion to the level of threat, so if Republic HQ knew it was Maul the response would Jedi supported by Clones, but "random major CIS agent" would mean Clone Commandos only as they would most likely not be a Force user and thus wouldn't need Jedi present, so sending in Clones wouldn't raise additional questions as a "we didn't know who it was" would be sufficient answer to any questions it would raise.

My point was that getting Tarkin or anyone else nuke the site from orbit until the mantle cracks, would be drastically out proportion response even for Maul so it would raise questions Palpatine wouldn't want to answer.

[bilateralrope]

Yes obviously a response in proportion to the level of threat, so if Republic HQ knew it was Maul the response would Jedi supported by Clones, but "random major CIS agent" would mean Clone Commandos only as they would most likely not be a Force user and thus wouldn't need Jedi present, so sending in Clones wouldn't raise additional questions as a "we didn't know who it was" would be sufficient answer to any questions it would raise.

My point was that getting Tarkin or anyone else nuke the site from orbit until the mantle cracks, would be drastically out proportion response even for Maul so it would raise questions Palpatine wouldn't want to answer.

I agree with you about a BDZ, or a lesser orbital strike, raises too many questions. I'm saying that other options also carry risks for Palpatine's plans. Any failed strike on Maul risks him figuring out that Palpatine sent him and deciding to talk to the Jedi.

Going with "we didn't know it was Maul" can avoid sending Jedi. But what kind of CIS target can justify sending enough clones to reliably eliminate Maul, without risking a Jedi deciding to tag along ?

Then there is the question of "How was our intell this wrong ?" afterwards because Maul isn't in the CIS during the clone wars. Meaning that any encounter with him will have a suspicious lack of CIS assets.

[Lord Revan]

Yes obviously a response in proportion to the level of threat, so if Republic HQ knew it was Maul the response would Jedi supported by Clones, but "random major CIS agent" would mean Clone Commandos only as they would most likely not be a Force user and thus wouldn't need Jedi present, so sending in Clones wouldn't raise additional questions as a "we didn't know who it was" would be sufficient answer to any questions it would raise.

My point was that getting Tarkin or anyone else nuke the site from orbit until the mantle cracks, would be drastically out proportion response even for Maul so it would raise questions Palpatine wouldn't want to answer.

I agree with you about a BDZ, or a lesser orbital strike, raises too many questions. I'm saying that other options also carry risks for Palpatine's plans. Any failed strike on Maul risks him figuring out that Palpatine sent him and deciding to talk to the Jedi.

Going with "we didn't know it was Maul" can avoid sending Jedi. But what kind of CIS target can justify sending enough clones to reliably eliminate Maul, without risking a Jedi deciding to tag along ?

Then there is the question of "How was our intell this wrong ?" afterwards because Maul isn't in the CIS during the clone wars. Meaning that any encounter with him will have a suspicious lack of CIS assets.

Yeah all of this is probably why Palpatine didn't have Maul eliminated in the first place, all the options (besides doing it himself) have way too many risks for the benefits.

As I argued before Maul is a nobody so during the Clone Wars him getting hold of someone who could reliably threaten Palpatine's plans and be taken at his word is minimal (not quite non-existant as he could be captured in an operation, which ultimately did happen only too late to really matter).

My posts was mostly to counter that a BDZ is a silver bullet Palpatine could use to get rid of Maul, if anything it would be the most risky option and even then there was not really any non-risky options.

So not eliminating Maul (once it was discovered he survived Naboo) is less about Darth Sidious not being ruthless enough and more about there really not being a good option to do so without it having unacceptable risk of backfiring. Palpatine is smart (if arrogant) so he'd weight in all the risks not just the most obvious ones.

[bilateralrope]

As I argued before Maul is a nobody so during the Clone Wars him getting hold of someone who could reliably threaten Palpatine's plans and be taken at his word is minimal (not quite non-existant as he could be captured in an operation, which ultimately did happen only too late to really matter).

It's not just about Maul getting close enough to someone important enough to matter. He got close enough to talk to Obi-Wan, and other Jedi, several times. But he wasn't in the right mood to say anything to hurt Palpatine.

So not eliminating Maul (once it was discovered he survived Naboo) is less about Darth Sidious not being ruthless enough and more about there really not being a good option to do so without it having unacceptable risk of backfiring. Palpatine is smart (if arrogant) so he'd weight in all the risks not just the most obvious ones.

Then there is the matter of precognition. I'm not sure how good Palpatine was at seeing the future, but it probably was enough to eliminate some possibilities.

[Solauren]

You are all missing a few points.
Up until Sidious showed up to kick the crap out of Savage Opress and Maul, Maul appeared to be trying to prove himself to be worthy of rejoining Sidious. Sidious decided that was a lie, or that Maul wasn't worth it, and proceeded to make the Daithmirians look like school children facing a MMA fighter. Maul literally begged Sidious for his life, but Sidious said he had plans for Maul. Sidious SPARED Maul to use him as a tool.

The odds are, at that point, Maul was more or less working for Sidious again. Sure, he had the odd small rebellion, but that's to be expected.

It probably wasn't until the time period of Star wars: Rebels that Maul was more actively rebelling against being Sidious tool.
Which lead to Mauls final death at the hands of Obi-wan Kenobi.

My conclusion: Sidious foresaw that Maul, and his activities, would amount to nothing more then an annoyance to Sidious, with a few things occuring could use to test Vader with. (Maul's involvement in Rebels, and the hunt for the Hidden Temple, lead to Vader facing Ashoka).

[Lord Revan]

I wouldn't say Maul actively joined Palpatine, I would say more that he acted as passive distraction for the Jedi/Republic to distract them from Palpatine's plans, while trying to stay out of the way of Palpatine's plan.

That said my whole argument was a reply to Shep's argument that Palpatine should have eliminated Maul like he did with Dooku.

[MKSheppard]

Or one of Palpatine's goals was specifically to get to the point where that sort of concern didn't matter. From his perspective, how is it 'UNLIMITED POWER' if you have to constantly play deniability games and worry about good PR?

Remember, he's not yet Emperor at this point -- he's still kindly old Chancellor Sheev Palpatine, who cares deeply about the common man and all that bullshit.

Long-term I'm sure he would have eventually wanted to transition to openly ruling as the immortal Sith God-Emperor with absolute authority. Presumably after he'd permanently moved into his Death Star mobile oppression palace and had the Last Order ready to go.

Yes; this was always his goal -- it's why I believe he authorized Tarkin to destroy Alderaan -- he wanted to either:

A.) Cow everyone into submission
or
B.) Spark a rebellion which he could then crush like Rohm's SA during the night of the long knives; leaving him with even more power than before.

[MKSheppard]

Getting CIS forces to eliminate Maul has less risk of Maul revealing anything incriminating. Droids can have their memory wiped, Dooku already knows about Palpatine. But that would still need a significant deployment of droids, which risks the Republic noticing and sending someone to investigate.

That's probably the most logical endpoint for "Maul revealing himself during Clone Wars"; it's neat, self contained, droids won't ask questions, and nobody will wonder too much about a CIS special operation in the middle of nowhere. Lots of special ops were going on during the clone wars.

Subpoint that I just realized now.

There must have been a cleanup operation in TPM, because a question that occurred to me just now is this.

Whatever happened with Darth Maul's Sith Infiltrator from TPM?

In old legends, it was a one off prototype built by Raith Sienar for ?

With Maul seemingly dead, it's likely to be recovered and picked over by the Jedi. "Who was Darth Maul? Where did he go? What is this ship from?" kind of questions etc.

[bilateralrope]

There must have been a cleanup operation in TPM, because a question that occurred to me just now is this.

Whatever happened with Darth Maul's Sith Infiltrator from TPM?

In old legends, it was a one off prototype built by Raith Sienar for ?

With Maul seemingly dead, it's likely to be recovered and picked over by the Jedi. "Who was Darth Maul? Where did he go? What is this ship from?" kind of questions etc.

I can see two possibilities with the cleanup operation:
- Explosive charges in Maul's ship to destroy anything incriminating. Like the navigation/communication logs.
- Palpatine exerting some influence over whatever experts the Jedi get in to examine Maul's ship.

We know it was a prototype built by Raith Sienar in Legends. But how would the Jedi find that link ?

Then there is the possibility that the ship was reported stolen by whoever Raith Sienar built it for. Add in a few deaths and, even if the Jedi do find the Raith Sienar connection, they won't be able to trace it to Palpatine.

[Lord Revan]

There must have been a cleanup operation in TPM, because a question that occurred to me just now is this.

Whatever happened with Darth Maul's Sith Infiltrator from TPM?

In old legends, it was a one off prototype built by Raith Sienar for ?

With Maul seemingly dead, it's likely to be recovered and picked over by the Jedi. "Who was Darth Maul? Where did he go? What is this ship from?" kind of questions etc.

I can see two possibilities with the cleanup operation:
- Explosive charges in Maul's ship to destroy anything incriminating. Like the navigation/communication logs.
- Palpatine exerting some influence over whatever experts the Jedi get in to examine Maul's ship.

We know it was a prototype built by Raith Sienar in Legends. But how would the Jedi find that link ?

Then there is the possibility that the ship was reported stolen by whoever Raith Sienar built it for. Add in a few deaths and, even if the Jedi do find the Raith Sienar connection, they won't be able to trace it to Palpatine.

Or simply have Palpatine be the person it was built for in the first place officially for a some classified project for the Judicial Corps, but then got stolen. That way it doesn't matter if Jedi could trace it Palpatine as he was officially the senator in charge of the project the ship was built to begin with, as long as the Jedi or the Judicial Corps don't find a link between Palpatine and the current user there's no problem there.

[Gandalf]

I've posited this before, but perhaps there are Sith functionaries? A Sith pair of two can't know and see everything, so some sympathetic muggles on the payroll make their power and ambitions more viable in a wider galaxy.

[Eternal_Freedom]

You mean like the creepy butler dude we saw at Vader's place in Rogue One?

[MKSheppard]

You mean like the creepy butler dude we saw at Vader's place in Rogue One?

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Vane%C3%A9

Supposedly in Marvel canon he's an imperial officer driven mad by the lava fumes of mustafar, lmao.

Just as bad as EU canon "that skull that Luke uses in ROTJ to escape the Rancor pit has a complete backstory".

[MKSheppard]

We know it was a prototype built by Raith Sienar in Legends. But how would the Jedi find that link ?

VIN numbers on hyperdrive motivator. VIN on various power converters. You can obfuscate things but you can't get everything.

Then there is the possibility that the ship was reported stolen by whoever Raith Sienar built it for. Add in a few deaths and, even if the Jedi do find the Raith Sienar connection, they won't be able to trace it to Palpatine.

In old legends, a few deaths were involved with those who did either final delivery or certain aspects of the design to keep it shrouded in secrecy.

[bilateralrope]

I've posited this before, but perhaps there are Sith functionaries? A Sith pair of two can't know and see everything, so some sympathetic muggles on the payroll make their power and ambitions more viable in a wider galaxy.

The Rule of Two has only ever been about the number of Sith. As far as I'm aware, they have always been able to have other underlings if those underlings are useful. Even force users like the Inquisitors. Though there was no requirement that they knew the truth about who they were working for.

So, could you be more specific about what you think a Sith functionary would be ?

[Gandalf]

So, could you be more specific about what you think a Sith functionary would be ?

In the same way that criminal organisations have accountants and lawyers, the Sith might presumably have some people on the payroll to help with their bureaucratic needs, but have no force powers.

For example, who paid for, registered, and maintains Maul's ship? In order to be a full time Sith, he farms out the task to a Saul Goodman, who knows which Republic office holders won't ask questions and can let things go in the right way for a small fee in untraceable credits. To pay for the ship, said criminal lawyer helps them set up a small income stream. And so on.

Once Palpatine becomes Chancellor, he can stop relying as much on these guys, or possibly just bring them into the fold as paid advisors.

[MKSheppard]

Once Palpatine becomes Chancellor, he can stop relying as much on these guys, or possibly just bring them into the fold as paid advisors.

This explains most (but maybe not all) of: Grand Vizier Mas Amedda, Sate Pestage, Janus Greejatus, Ars Dangor, Kren Blista-Vanee, and Verge.

[Galvatron]

I'd imagine that a lot of work could be offloaded to droids as well.

[MKSheppard]

I'd imagine that a lot of work could be offloaded to droids as well.

Canonically proven that wiping is good enough for State Secrets:

"I'm placing these droids in your care. Treat them well, clean them up, have the Protocol Droid's mind wiped."

[Ralin]

Palpatine obviously had to have select fixers and experts on hand for various things, but 'Sith functionary' implies they actually knew who and what they were working for. At least partially.

Plagueis had a specific medical droid that assisted in his freaky midichlorian experiments. Wasn't told about the political plans and was valued in part because of their ability to not ask questions, but presumably could have made a lot of inferences given the work they were doing. I imagine that's the sort of relationship we're talking about.

[Galvatron]

Also, Exegol was home to innumerable Sith cultists that would have been at Palpatine's disposal at least as far back as just after TESB.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sith_cultist

[Gandalf]

Palpatine obviously had to have select fixers and experts on hand for various things, but 'Sith functionary' implies they actually knew who and what they were working for. At least partially.

That's indeed what I was thinking. People who know enough about their clients to give them ideal customer service, but are treated well enough that going to the authorities just isn't worth it.

Also, Exegol was home to innumerable Sith cultists that would have been at Palpatine's disposal at least as far back as just after TESB.

I would like to see them working in little offices as legal and financial consulting for active Sith Lords. Spreadsheets, graphs, risk matrices, and so on. Maybe even a call centre, as all of Sidious/Maul's calls go to Exegol, and those calls are routed where appropriate.

"Since moving core Sith operations to Exegol, we have managed to make massive quarterly savings, while also increasing OpSec. The average Sith Lord spends less time on paperwork, and more time focusing on The Force."

[MKSheppard]

That's indeed what I was thinking. People who know enough about their clients to give them ideal customer service, but are treated well enough that going to the authorities just isn't worth it.

Also, in the case of Sate Pestage, etc; they may have become enmeshed in so many dirty deals that their only logical choice is to ride to the death with Palpatine; because without his protection, they're wanted men in 24 systems if the truth comes out.