Now that we’re talking about potentially changing the origin story of the Sith fleet, I wanted to share something from the early leaks that could be relevant to the conversation.

One of Jason Ward’s leaks, from before the D23 trailer, described the Final Order / Wayfinder stuff differently than what we ended up getting. Here’s how he described it:

“The fleet is why Kylo Ren needs the Wayfinder device, I’m told. The fleet is the key Kylo Ren needs to unlock Palpatine’s legacy. This is sort of a Pandora’s Box for Kylo, it seems. He thinks he’s getting himself something powerful that answers to him, but Palpatine is not so willing to share his toys with anyone. Palpatine’s contingency plans weren’t to make sure Darth Vader’s grandson received his inheritance.”

This contradicts the final movie, where Kylo is looking for Palpatine specifically instead of the fleet, and Palpatine’s contingency actually was to have Kylo inherit his empire. However, I feel like the way the leaks described it would be much more interesting. It would be nice to have some tension between the two Sith, instead of a bland master-and-apprentice relationship. And also, Kylo searching for the lost fleet could be an effective way to remove all mentions of Palpatine from the opening crawl, giving Kylo an alternate reason to search for the Wayfinder.