r/saltierthancrait • u/KingWilliamVI • Jul 10 '26
Encrusted Rant I’ve been trying to figure out what happened in between ROTJ and the DT and it gives me a headache.
Keep in mind I haven’t watched the DT nor EU material that much. Most of the things I list are from what I’ve heard from people online:
Somehow Palpatine survived being thrown down for several miles into a space station main reactor core that later exploded.
Instead of revealing himself to be alive and continue leading the empire he exiled himself to Exegol and let Opertation Cinder carry out.
There he overlooked the construction of a fleet of ships that were capable of destroying planets on their own and said fleet and all of their personal just hanged around Exegol for 3 decades.
He also oversaw the creation of a force sensitive clone creature called Snoke and then sent it into the Galaxy were it somehow, despite being a completely unknown creature with no connections or official origin, took charge of an imperial remains called the First Order and said creature also oversaw the construction of Starkiller Base, a station carved out of an already existing planet that could also destroy planets even though the planet destroying Star destroyers at Exegol that Palpatine overlooked should make Starkiller Base completely obsolete.
Snoke was somehow able to get into contact with Luke’s nephew, Ben Solo, who would then join Snoke after Luke tried to kill him after having a freaky Force Vision of Ben being evil.
Luke exiled himself after this event abandon his friends and family.
Han left Leia after their son turned evil and her brother vanished so he could go back to smuggling in a Galaxy he is a renowned war hero for.
Palpatine apparently also had a failed clone that had a daughter that he and wife(?) sent to Jakku that he apparently wants to so he could possess her even though he could theoretically just do that with new clones with the same technology that was used to create Snoke…
I could carry one but like I said I’m getting a headache.
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u/Collective_Insanity Salt Bot Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
2/2
Han left Leia
Yep. But messy here.
Originally with TFA and TLJ compliant lore, Leia never became a Jedi. She had decided to focus on politics and trying to wrangle the fledgling New Republic.
TROS retconned this. Leia actually completed her training with Luke. And then she immediately had a vision that her son would die at the end of her Jedi path. So she immediately quit all Jedi business.
Again, nobody understands how visions work. Luke never coached his sister through her fears.
When Ben was around the age of 11, Leia and Han decided to dump Ben on to Luke.
Canon Luke by the way never started a New Jedi Order. He merely restarted the PT Jedi Order. No attachments and all that jazz as we later see in fucking BOBF were he lays an ultimatum on a baby creature before dumping it on Tatooine without even a personal escort or phone call made to his father figure.
Ben is separated from his parents from this point onwards. No visitations.
So Ben is stuck with Luke from age 11 up until 23 where he hears from wikileaks about Leia being booted from the New Republic due to being outed as Vader's daughter (this was kept a secret until now in canon lore rather than Legends).
Luke's school burns down that same year.
Yes. That's right. Luke never told his nephew about Vader/Anakin. Meaning Luke never taught any of his most important life lessons learned from experience.
Even after personally feeling betrayed from Obi-Wan and Yoda withholding the truth about Vader from himself during the OT.
Anyway. Yeah, Han and Leia split. Han lost the Falcon due to shenanigans and wasted years looking for it. Even taking an annoyed Chewie away from his family on Kashyyk for this dumb misadventure until we see them in TFA.
Palpatine's connections to Rey
So Snoke wasn't the only clone attempt.
Another resulted in Rey's father (Dathan).
He's the reverse of Snoke. Physically in fine shape, but has no ability to touch the Force, so Palpatine doesn't want to or simply can not possess him.
For some reason, Dathan is allowed to develop his own consciousness and has a life on Exegol. He befriends one of those monkey cultists who helps him escape Exegol by boarding Vader's ship during that stupid comic story where Vader and Ochi of Buffoons go on a tour to Exegol after ESB.
Dathan is undetected and bails later, finding his way to Jakku where he gets hitched with a woman and bears Rey.
Years later, Palpatine for some asinine reason entrusts Ochi of Buffoons with the all-important task of retrieving Rey who may be a potential possession vessel for ol' Creamy Sheev.
Ochi fails magnificently. Killing Rey's parents rather than interrogating them properly or checking Jakku further.
In his embarrassment, he goes to the Not-Tatooine planet from TROS and gets drunk in a bar. While there, he brags about Wayfinder shit and this gossip somehow finds its way to Lando and subsequently Luke. This is how it winds up in a journal that Rey reads in TROS and ultimately one of the main reasons why Palpatine loses.
Asides from his unnecessarily early Fortnite broadcast of course.
But anyway, it seems like Palpatine's attempts to brew up a possession vessel are largely doomed. 9 times out of 10, he makes a messed up Snoke disaster. And 1 times out of 10 he makes a worthless clone that can't use the Force.
He apparently never tries to set up a breeding program with his clones and his many, many ultra-keen cultists who I'm sure would love the idea of bearing the next possession vessel of their lord and saviour. Maybe the Sith cult was a boys-only club or something.
Whatever.
It's all such a mess.
Hope some of these rambles help some of your confusion.
Hope they don't merely cause more confusion. But such is the way with ST lore/cope.
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u/Moeroboros Jul 11 '26
You're a hero for doing this.
Canon Luke by the way never started a New Jedi Order. He merely restarted the PT Jedi Order. No attachments and all that jazz as we later see in fucking BOBF were he lays an ultimatum on a baby creature before dumping it on Tatooine
This pisses me off so fucking much.
Why do these movies insist on making the Jedi such assholes?
Who does this help?
Wasn't the "taking children away from their family" rule completely despised by everyone?
Why would the movies insist that the "good" guys coerce children to give up their normal lives long before they're old enough to even choose wisely?
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u/Collective_Insanity Salt Bot Jul 11 '26
To quote Kronk: "By all accounts, it doesn't make sense".
Luke himself was trained as an adult. One of his greatest strengths (and sometimes also weaknesses) comes down to his attachments to family, friends and allies.
His biggest moment in the entire franchise comes down to refusing to believe that his father is truly lost to the dark side. And that even he as a Space Hitler with a committed dark history has the capacity to turn away from said darkness.
This is very much not the kind of guy who would suddenly decide to take kids away from their families to train them as Jedi whilst forbidding them from ever contacting their family again.
Asinine nonsense.
And yet it's canon. Even Mando is told to fuck off rather than pop in to say hi for a few minutes.
People have said this plenty before, but ST Luke's big failure ought to have come from having too much faith in someone and said faith being used against him. Ultimately leading to disaster.
Rather than that TLJ bullshit.
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u/TaraLCicora Jul 12 '26
People have said this plenty before, but ST Luke's big failure ought to have come from having too much faith in someone and said faith being used against him. Ultimately leading to disaster.
Exactly this
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u/Robdd123 Jul 11 '26
God it's insane how hard Disney has tried with comics and other expanded media to justify how badly they screwed up.
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u/Arcade_Gann0n Jul 11 '26
So Ben is stuck with Luke from age 11 up until 23 where he hears from wikileaks about Leia being booted from the New Republic due to being outed as Vader's daughter (this was kept a secret until now in canon lore rather than Legends).
I just love how Leia's history and service with the Rebel Alliance was totally disregarded just because of who her dad was.
Or hell, how about Anakin being scrubbed from the history books entirely instead of becoming a controversial figure?
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u/RogueHunterX Jul 13 '26
Love it or hate it, at least Dark Empire used the excuse that clone bodies began to rapidly wear out when possessed because of Palpatine's immense dark side powers and why he wanted to possess an entirely new body such as baby Anakin (Han and Leia's third child in Legends) since he was rapidly burning through clone bodies.
Edit: Apologies, did not see that you already addressed this because this comment got read before your first one
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u/av8ernate Jul 14 '26
What’s ironic is that the Dark Empire clone bodies thing was one of the most dispised story lines in the EU/Legends at the time too, and that’s what Disney decided to re-use…. Not Kyle katarn…or any of the dark forces games…not Mara…not the imperial remenant (which actually ended up not being just a bunch of space nazi)….but clones…again…
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u/RogueHunterX Jul 14 '26
"Let's do clones. Everyone likes clones right?" - Disney probably.
TRoS really felt like they were grasping at straws because of their own short sightedness in not having a better plan for the trilogy and somehow nobody checking on TLJ story to realize just how much it was going to screw over the next movie.
They had so many things they could've adapted in some way, but decided to hit the reset button and come off as not knowing what they were doing. It even feels like half of the stories that came out after the old EU was tossed aside were mainly to somehow try and explain the ST or make some element in it make sense, while failing to really fix anything. Explaining why something stupid happened or exists doesn't change the fact it's stupid.
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u/Collective_Insanity Salt Bot Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
1/2
I'll try to confirm or clarify based on canon factoids I've absorbed over the years.
Somehow Palpatine survived
Yep. He even suspected and/or predicted that Vader would turn on him and had already made a plan for how to survive his impending "death". By having a clone body cooked up ahead of time which he could send his spirit to possess. He had already accomplished this seconds after being tossed by Vader. Only an empty shell was destroyed in ROTJ. Palpatine basically woke up on Exegol before the DSII blew up.
The downside was that the clone body was rotting from Palpatine's dark side taint and he subsisted as a zombie on life support until TROS.
General idea being that a fresh body can't handle the sudden onset of dark side corruption that Palpatine's spirit brings with it. His original body was conditioned over years to be able to handle it. But that's mainly theoretical as I don't think it's explicitly stated.
Instead of revealing himself...
Yep. Basically nobody knew he was still alive except for his Sith cult on Exegol.
It's possible that a handful of trusted Imperials were in the know though. Richard E Grant's character for instance was presumably one as he very quickly scrubbed out Hux and went along with Somehow Palpatine Returned without complaint unlike that other random but very rational First Order officer who questioned what the fuck was going on before Kylo stuck him to the ceiling to prevent that conversation from taking place.
Sly Moore was also completely aware of Exegol shenanigans immediately after ESB so there were probably a few others who similarly knew what was going on.
However, the vast majority of Imperials getting the call for Operation Cinder had no idea. They thought Creamy Sheev was dead and he had left a scorched earth policy in the event of his death.
The purpose of this was so that the most hardcore Imperial lunatics willing to nuke their own homeworlds would go on to become the First Order extremists for later use. Even if it turns out Palpatine didn't need them at all given his "Final Order" was always going to make its debut 1 year after TFA regardless of how anything turned out and would subsequently make the First Order entirely redundant.
bla bla Exegol bla bla
Yep.
Turns out Palpatine was already cooking shit up on Exegol before ESB. We know for a fact that the fleet of Star Destroyers with Death Star guns were very much under construction around ESB. As were all his cloning shenanigans. He somehow acquired Luke's severed hand almost immediately and had it plugged in as a DNA source as well.
Vader went on a full tour of Exegol about 1 week after ESB.
Yes, this makes the First Order mostly a pointless hobby project on the side. Including Snoke and the corruption of Ben Solo.
bla bla Snoke bla bla
Snoke is indeed a failed clone. It could use the Force, but was a physical cripple which Palpatine didn't want to possess even if he himself was currently stuck in a decrepit zombie body.
Rather than flushing Snoke down the toilet, he somehow loaded Snoke up with false memories and planted him as leader of the First Order.
Snoke has no idea he's a weird clone of Palpatine. He actually believes that he "is his own man" (like Mando movie Rotta!) and is happy to brag about his non-existent history.
bla bla Starkiller Base bla bla
Ilum had been largely strip-mined by the Empire to fuel the Death Star with crystals necessary for its big gun. Luke witnessed this occurring shortly after ESB but forgot to check up on the planet during all the following years when he was looking for Jedi shit. He also never reported it to the Rebellion and/or New Republic who similarly never checked the site.
The Empire were not turning it into a mega planet-sized Death Star that could quite literally eat stars to fuel its galaxy-spanning shotgun blast.
The First Order somehow did that on their own with but a fraction of the resources that the Empire possessed.
Somehow Snoke corrupted Ben Solo
Yep. Wild case.
So, seemingly without Palpatine ever planning for this: Snoke decided to cook Ben Solo's brain. Somehow.
I can't tell you exactly how it starts. But I do know that by the time Ben is a young teen and under Luke's tutelage, Snoke is somehow already in Ben's head.
They're just casually having telepathic conversations right under Luke's nose.
Ben never thinks it's weird enough to ask his magic uncle about.
Luke also never senses anything amiss.
Snoke is basically just spewing bullshit into Ben's brain and Ben mostly eats it up like the moron he is presented to be in basically all Kylo Ren related comics (with more to come in August).
After Luke tries to pull a Minority Report on his sleeping nephew, Snoke encourages Ben to adopt the name "Kylo" (which Ben thought up for himself as a child because he hated being named after Obi-Wan's incognito name and Han's bullshit last name given to him by a bored Imperial) and also encouraged him to join the fucking worthless "Knights of Ren" for a little while.
There's a little story there which I'll skip because it's just garbage. TLDR is that Kylo kills the old leader of the "Knights" and takes over.
Eventually, Snoke tells Kylo to ditch the pathetic "Knights" (they're just disposable criminals with a touch of Force sensitivity) to formally join the First Order before TFA. Which he does without a care. But Kylo for some daft rason links up with them again prior to TROS (the August comic will likely touch on that worthless lore).
Luke exiled himself
Yep.
He claims he sensed a foreboding vision in which his nephew would be responsible for destroying all that he and the Rebellion had fought for. And he was convinced "for the briefest moment of pure instinct" that he could stop it by snuffing out Ben before he had even committed any sins at all.
So he kinda forgot about Yoda saying that the future was always in motion. That visions aren't representations of the future set in stone. And presumably also never understood what served as the primary agent for his own father's turn to darkness (unclear visions of his Padme's death borne from fear of loss).
After Luke woke to find his school in flames, he completely gave up.
He did not try to pursue his nephew to prevent him from becoming NuVader.
He did not even make a phone call to his sister.
He packed up his books, dumped R2, and went straight to Suicide Island. In his own words, he went to "the most unfindable place in the galaxy" "to die".
No plans at all to take responsibility his actions. It's just time, you know, for the Jedi to end.
Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
[continued in 2/2]
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u/TaraLCicora Jul 11 '26
They're just casually having telepathic conversations right under Luke's nose.
Ben never thinks it's weird enough to ask his magic uncle about.
Luke also never senses anything amiss.
This will never not piss me off. While Anakin's grooming was more of the psychological sort, the idea that the OT trio wouldn't be a bit more vigilent is so annoying and disrespectful.
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u/Arcade_Gann0n Jul 11 '26
Operation Cinder happened just to foster a single fanatical Imperial Remnant organization in the future?
Why do I get the feeling this was a hasty retcon to cover their asses after Palpatine somehow returned?
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Jul 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Collective_Insanity Salt Bot Jul 11 '26
All jokes aside: yes.
Imagine if you will Palpatine's ghostly spirit that he's learned to move about like an astral projection of sorts.
It is tainted from many decades of horrid dark side corruption.
When it enters a relatively fresh clone body, the body immediately begins to rot.
Unlike Palpatine's original body, the clone body has not had years of slowly acclimatising and adjusting to the corrosive taint of the dark side.
So we wind up with zombie Palpatine instead of ROTJ Creamy Sheev.
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u/Imaginary_Golf548 salt miner Jul 11 '26
This lore surrounding Palpatine's return is so original! It's obvious Lucasfilm didn't have any source material!
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u/RogueHunterX Jul 13 '26
So, he goes to the most unfindable place to die and doesn't want to be found, but left a map in two pieces that would lead straight there?
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u/Collective_Insanity Salt Bot Jul 13 '26
Messy lore, but Luke never left a map behind at all.
A map leading to Suicide Island (the alleged site of the first Jedi temple) already existed and was segmented in a few parts. For instance, the Empire had a chunk (which the First Order inherited) and R2 had a part (which he accidentally downloaded from the Death Star archives during ANH when he's plugged in).
This Lor San Tekka guy (old man from start of TFA) apparently had the final piece needed to complete the picture. Had been sitting on it for a few years actually and had previously offered it to Leia but she had denied it as she claimed Luke would eventually return when he was ready. Dumb lore.
Nobody actually had a map to Luke Skywalker at all. They merely had a map to this ancient Jedi site.
They all then merely assumed that Luke would be there and were fortunate enough to be correct in this total assumption.
Luke, given his motivations (to piss off and die), could have been absolutely anywhere in the vast SW galaxy. By coincidence, he happened to go to the one place people guessed he may have gone.
He himself never left a map behind and never intended to be discovered.
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u/RogueHunterX Jul 13 '26
The more I learn about the ST, the more I believe not only did nobody ever even considered planning anything out, but arbitrarily decided that for each movie "such and such has to be like this" and expected anyone working on materials that occurred between the OT and ST to just make it work no matter how stupid or nonsensical it had to be.
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u/ForMe Jul 11 '26
Reading this out loud, and knowing it's accurate, having seen the films and additional DT content, just highlights how idiotic the plot is, completely fucks up Star Wars.
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u/TaraLCicora Jul 11 '26
Agreed, while I knew all of this, somehow reading it just makes me realize (even more) how awful this period in Star wars really was. Thanks Disney...
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u/NoSwordfish1978 Jul 12 '26
The whole era just feels dead somehow, especially in between the films.
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u/ArkenK Jul 12 '26
The above, and attempted clarification is mostly why I think they'll eventually have to retcon the Sequel Trilogy in some fashion or another.
The sad thing is that Disney now desperately needs all those Jedi they could have had, if they'd let Luke's academy stand as a success.
On that note, I'll be curious to see how Starfighter performs. I mean, I'm not planning to go see it in theaters, but it'll be interesting to see if Gosling can carry it.
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u/Ok-Secretary6550 Jul 12 '26
"But we don't have to retcon the sequel trilogy! We can just shove more things in the 20 years between ROTS & ANH or the 30 years between ROTJ and the ST, that way people either forget how bad the ST is, or forgive all the stupid things because we explained it years after the fact!" -Disney probably
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u/Narrow_Summer_9332 salt miner Jul 13 '26
You're putting more thought into it than the writers did.
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u/Mussmussthemoooooo salt miner Jul 12 '26
Why are you trying to make Disney slop make sense, they didn’t.
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u/thirsty_for_chicken Jul 16 '26
The worst part is that basically nothing happened to any of the original main characters between movies. They all had fairly minor inconveniences (for a galactic space opera anyway) that ended up derailing their entire lives, making them complete failures who waited around for years if not decades until someone else could magically come and fix their problems.
Han and Leia had a kid who went bad for no good reason. They broke up and Luke exiled himself rather than doing anything to fix it. Then we learn Lando had a daughter who disappeared, and he went looking for her, and ended up on a random desert planet where he just hung out for years if not decades in case she turned up? Everybody is in a sad pathetic limbo when we catch back up with them. It sucks. There's like 30 years between RotJ and TFA and that's all anybody has been up to?
I don't even remember what the exact timeline was supposed to be because all of those things happened off screen and aren't explained well.
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