Page 77 - Star Wars Insider #188

The Great Fraud
Ten years after the Trade
Federation’s attempted takeover
of Naboo, Palpatine remains
Supreme Chancellor, while the
galaxy is engulfed in a new
crisis that threatens to split the
Republic apart. The Confederacy
of Independent Systems, led by
the onetime Jedi Master Count
Dooku, are rallying members of
the Republic to secede from the
interplanetary government that
has held the galaxy together for
thousands of years. Since the
Jedi Knights cannot preserve law
over such a large expanse, many
senators want the Republic to
build its own army, which it hasn’t
maintained for millennia. Others,
like Senator Padmé Amidala of
Naboo, who have lived through
the misery of confl ict, believe
militarization will incite war on a
massive scale.
Demonstrating why he’s held
the chancellorship for so long,
Palpatine presents himself as
a man of reason, sympathetic
to valid security concerns, yet
reluctant to disrupt the ongoing
peace negotiations with the
Separatists. In actuality, he’s
playing both sides against each
other to amass more power
for himself. He defers the
• • •
mobilization vote, but when the Jedi Council
learns the Separatists are assembling a droid
army to attack the Republic, Palpatine agrees
they must act. Senator Amidala’s stand-in,
Junior Naboo Representative Jar Jar Binks,
convinces the Senate to vote to grant Supreme
Chancellor Palpatine emergency powers so
that he can move swiftly and commission an
army on his own.
Palpatine pretends to be loath to accept
such powers, going so far—in a scene in the
shooting draft of Star Wars: Attack of the
Clones (2002)—as to voice concerns to Yoda
and Mace Windu before Representative Binks
makes his case to the Senate. He says it’s too
extreme a situation, akin to a dictatorship.
Yet that is precisely what he will slowly do
with those powers: turn the Republic into a
dictatorship, with himself installed as the sole
leader. For the moment, however, Palpatine
tells the Senate the opposite, promising that
his emergency powers are only temporary:
PALPATINE: “It is with great reluctance that I
have agreed to this calling. I love democracy. I
love the Republic. The power you give me I will
lay down when this crisis is abated.”
With the new authority vested in him,
Palpatine can do what he wishes without
Senate approval. His fi rst act is to create a
Grand Army of the Republic, comprised of
the clone soldiers whom Obi-Wan Kenobi
discovers are being created and raised on
Kamino. Years before, the Jedi Master Sifo-
Dyas had foreseen that the
Republic would be engaged in
a violent future confl ict and had
secretly ordered the Kaminoans
to clone an army of soldiers.
Since Palpatine needs an army
as quickly as he can get one, the
clones are the most logical choice
to fi ll its ranks. The Jedi agree to
lead these troopers on the fi eld of
battle as generals.
The fact that clones and Jedi
make up the Republic’s infantry
stifl es public outcry. Citizens
are encouraged to serve in the
Republic navy, but aren’t being
conscripted for combat, so no
one has to unwillingly sacrifi ce
their life to wage war on other
worlds. This affords Palpatine
a buffer from major political
resistance during the initial stages
of what become known as “the
Clone Wars.” Nevertheless, as
he watches clone troopers board
and take off in assault ships at the
end of Attack of the Clones, he is
clearly solemn and sad, as if this
was a desperately unwanted but
necessary evil.
In truth, Palpatine’s plan has
taken a giant leap forward, with
the confl ict throwing the galaxy
into turmoil and bringing his goal
of dictatorial power ever closer.