Boeing 757 wrote:And this personally justifies the Emperor not blowing Luke to hell for all of the blows he's commited against the Empire? There's many replacements available to carry on Operation Shadow Hand, but instead he has to search the one person who annihilated the Empire's final victory. He could even grant the power of the dark side like he does in DEII if he can't find people. How far does a madman increase his ability before destroying his own work? I really don't think Luke should have made much of a difference, in fact, he's actions at Endor prove how much of a threat he was capable of being. Yet we have an Emperor in DE who mildly ignores this not once, but numerous times, showing how unrealistic the DE authors were.
Numerous times? We're talking about DE - not DE2 or EE. Anywho, there were literally ten-thousand Jedi in TPM. Why choose the volatile and more powerful Anakin Skywalker? Because he's better and more of a challenge. You're saying this is out of character or unreasonable for Palpatine when it is in fact who he has always been, and hubris is not something limited merely to the powerful men of fantastic fiction.
Point of fact, Shadows of the Empire establishes that Luke Skywalker's potential as of that time exceeded that of Lord Darth Vader. In essence, he was the greatest Jedi ever, a kind of second Anakin. None of this is a surprise because the entire mythos REVOLVES AROUND IT. GL explicitly endorses this explanation in his commentaries. The other heirarchs are not true substitutes for Luke Skywalker. Lord Sidious' weakness is his overconfidence. You're telling me you've watched STAR WARS?
The SW galaxy is a huge place. Wouldn't it be wiser to find a number of individuals capable of complementing his Shadow hand instead, perhaps beings with Force abilities on par with Darth Maul or Tyranus? These beings could be raised from the get go to be utterly submissive and they'd also be more flexible and mobile to move about the Empire.
All these arguments could apply to ROTS and Lord Vader, just as easily. Even worse, Lord Vader IMMEDIATELY wanted to usurp Palpatine's throne and Sith Mastery, and at that time Palpatine had no recourse to reincarnation. This is part of Palpatine's personality and the general expected tendency for godlike beings and powerful men. Either you think Lucas' writing is retarded and you don't like STAR WARS in general - that is, your complaint is genuine and not just about DE - or you're unfairly maligning DE for what is a constant throughout the saga.
Why the need to waste so much time and resources on one individual (one who constantly fucks up the Empire's victories I might add) to the point where those actions eventually destroy the Empire's plans time and time again?
Because
he is more powerful. Why recruit and rely upon a loose cannon like Anakin Skywalker?
How so? Does an Emperor known for his humility and originality rise back from the dead and expect to be greeted as if nothing ever happened? Remember, the public doesn't even know he's a Sith, let alone that he can resurrect from the dead! Do you actually believe the citizens of the Galactic Empire would believe such an improbable tale and hail him as legitimate?
People believed throughout history that beloved leaders could return to them. Many a pretender has claimed they went into hiding when forced out by their enemies and are ready to return to lead their people. In STAR WARS, Palpatine was a beloved secular demigod - its said in the ROTJ novelisation. After Endor there was a popular cult foretelling his return: the Church of the Dark Side. The same citizens were terrified of and - even the main characters - made up implausible theories for how the terrifying but dramatically less prestigious and influential Grand Admiral Thrawn could return - not five or six but ten years later and with much fewer resources to claim. Yet it is particular to DE that his cult of personality of the Emperor is implausible and silly?
Or that political leaders of the post Endor Empire would believe this willingly without ample proof and just hand over their personal domains to this new imposter? No, I think instead clone Palpatine most likely regained the Deep Core holdings with his godlike powers (that would make him seem even more unlike the original Emperor whom the galaxy feared), allowing him to retake the majority of the galaxy for the ride.
The Deep Core is not a holding of remarkable resources or population or industry. You're talking about the same man who, filmically-speaking, ran two sides of the same galaxy-shattering civil war without anyone the wiser - yet after he had an all-encompassing, universal cult of personality, ruled as indisputed autocrat for a quarter century, and disappeared for much less time than transpired prior to the lamented and feared return nine years later of GADM Thrawn - is implausible? He had unlimited public prestige yet the various courtiers, warlords, and provisional government organs were just going to ignore his return? And this is IGNORING the kind of intrigue he performed during the Clone War and prior. This is ignoring his heirarchs and spies and cultists. This is ignoring his corporate minions, agents in place, etc.
What you're complaining about is no mere innovation of DE. It is FILMICALLY precedented.
The equivalent is like George W. Bush dying at the beginning of his second term, being buried, and then magically appearing to resume the US Presidency. Not only would that be incredulous, but so far out of left field that it sound like some crazy plot to usurp the US government. No one would believe him or his story.
A better comparison would be Imperator Caesar Augustus, or Kim Jong-il. Like it or not, this kind of pretendership is HISTORICALLY precedented. Maybe it is your background of comparison which is deficient and not the authorship.
Palpatine is gone as far as the galaxy proper is concerned. Another reason for Luke's death at the loss of that prestige. That the clone Emperor didn't erradicate him at the first oppurtunity (and I'll make that distinction of him not being original) shows how great of a genius he truly is--and how unrealistic the authors of DE are.
Yet Vader dreamed of killing Palpatine literally first day on the job and this is before the suit and whilst Palpatine had no reincarnation to fall back on.
Yes, the same Vader who does everything the Emperor wants him to do. The same Vader who's known as the Emperor's right hand man. If the Emperor tells him to jump, Vader asks "How high?" I'm sure all of the Emperor's most distinguised servants want to surpass him too, and the Emperor probably knows it, but as long as they can't act on that threat and have a high degree of use they can be tolerated. Vader fits in that category. But Luke?
Obviously you haven't read the ROTS novelisation. Or even seen the film. But that's not my problem. This is precedented as part of who Palpatine is, its not DE's sole fault, its a filmic precedent, and its certainly not out of character for powerful autocrats.
Luke defied the Emperor's will outright, and further ruined his realm and his name. If the clone Emperor were any bright he'd of bitchsmacked that farmboy back to Tatooine as soon as he came to Byss. Instead we get a story where the Emperor not only pursues Luke once, but AGAIN after Luke trashes his clones, his Devastators, and his Eclipse.
"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant compared to the power of the Force."
That's the filmic religious bent from which Sidious comes from. Compared to controlling the Force and bending a Skywalker to his will, the other matter is mere detail. In the same saga no one is surprised a single corrupt Jedi general of some regional wars can become a Sith Lord and all but conquer the galaxy (the
Knights of the Old Republic computer RPG). In the same saga no one is surprised that conquering a valley of imprisoned Jedi souls can make a galactic emperor - other factions, an ongoing galactic-scale civil war, other heirarchs (including Palpatine at the time), surviving Jedi, etc. be damned (
Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight). In the same saga no one is surprised on his first day's work as a Sith Lord, Anakin Skywalker plots of becoming a galactic autocrat and overthrowing an immensely, popularly acclaimed despot backed by one of the strongest armed forces in history, arrayed as to complete the destruction of a galactic revolt (
Revenge of the Sith). If you don't like this, you shouldn't like Star Wars. But that's not DE's fault. Powerful Force sensates can make or break empires. They are the quintessential variables in domination to any prospective Sith Lord.
Which is before Luke forces Vader to kill his master, thus trashing the Empire and throne which he strived to build. Look, good sir, I'm not saying DE isn't canon. All I'm saying is that I think DE makes Palpatine look like a moronic jack ass. It degrades his character. The story has a LOT of potential, but it also has a lot of bull shit stuff in it as well (it is a comic book after all, and also a part of the glorious EU
).
And what you just said was that ROTJ is somehow not part of the same mistakes? That's filmic and written by GL's hand. Its not Dark Empire. Its Star Wars.