Palpatine's Contingency Plan Explained

The story of Sheev Palpatine following his apparent death at the Battle of Endor has been a bit odd in canon. The idea of him coming back to life as the main villain of The Rise of Skywalker was not considered seriously until J. J. Abrams brought it to the table when he took Colin Trevorrow's place in directing the final installment of the saga. Prior to that, other sources beyond the films told a story of the Contingency and Operation Cinder, which did not seem like it was all leading to the return of Palpatine so much as his Empire being completely destroyed and/or being rebuilt into something else in the case of his death.

Last week, however, StarWars.com released an article titled "STAR WARS INSIDE INTEL: PALPATINE’S CONTINGENCY PLAN." This article is an attempt to synthesize these various sources into a coherent summary of Palpatine's plans. One's mileage may vary regarding how well it all works together. (Personally, I feel that the flow from talk of Contingency and Operation Cinder to talk of Palpatine's experiments on Exegol feels off.) So here is the official story as of now.

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For many years, Palpatine and Sith cultists had been experimenting with cloning on Exegol. He also built a fleet here that would become the Final Order. In Greg Pak's current Darth Vader series, we see that Vader discovered the lair on Exegol after the events of The Empire Strikes Back. Then the Battle of Endor took place in Return of the Jedi, and Palpatine's consciousness went to a clone body on Exegol that was too weak for him to use to the fullest. This would lead to the creation of more clones and strand-casts.

Meanwhile, as detailed in Chuck Wendig's Aftermath novel trilogy but featured in other stories such as Claudia Gray's Lost Stars novel, Greg Rucka's Shattered Empire comic miniseries, and EA's Battlefront II video game, Palpatine's Contingency went into effect in the event of his "death." The first step was for sentinel droids to advise Imperials on what to do next, which was Operation: Cinder. This called for the destruction of Imperial and New Republic planets. It was meant to wipe out sensitive info and liabilities. The article continues,

"The operation was carried out in various ways, including the use of climate disruption arrays which, once fired upon a planet, would create catastrophic weather conditions; vortex detonators, a customized explosive that made the planet of Nacronis uninhabitable; and the Imperial Navy, who engaged in battles on planets that attempted to resist the operation such as Naboo, Burnin Konn (as mentioned in The Mandalorian), Abednedo, and more."

A year after Palpatine's death, the Battle of Jakku took place. Gallius Rax, the self-appointed Counselor of the Empire, led the remnants of the Empire in a final large scale battle against New Republic forces. The Contingency meant for this to be the end of the old Empire. Rax was supposed to destroy Jakku to punish those who had failed the Emperor, but Grand Admiral Rae Sloane stopped him from doing this. The Contingency had been kept secret from her, and she believed Rax was keeping the Empire from its glory she believed it deserved. She shot Rax, and in his dying moments, Rax urged Sloane to go to the Unknown Regions with Brendol Hux and create an improved Empire, which would be the First Order. Sloane obeyed, and there is still a gap to be filled between this part of the story and the sequel era.

Palpatine's cloning efforts in the meantime led to the creation of a strand-cast who would father Rey, his granddaughter. Rey's father and mother tried their best to hide Rey from her evil grandfather. But of course, Rey would be left behind on Jakku, with her parents killed by assassin Ochi of Bestoon. Snoke, described in the article as "one of Palpatine’s evil duplicates," would go on to lead the First Order as a puppet of Palpatine, with the Sith Lord's words coming out of Snoke's mouth, as seen in Charles Soule's comic miniseries The Rise of Kylo Ren. Snoke was unsuccessful in bringing Rey to Palpatine, who needed a new body to inhabit. However, Kylo Ren eventually found Palpatine on Exegol, setting in motion another attempt to obtain Rey. But of course, we know that the rest of the story unfolds in Palpatine's failure.

What do you think? Does this all feel like a more cohesive story? Are there noticeable gaps that need to be filled? Feel free to leave a comment.

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Written By Steven Shinder

Source(s): StarWars.com

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