Is it a clone? I thought it was now canonically Palpatine’s spirit inhabiting a Palpatine clone body? So, functionally the original Palpatine reborn.
It’s moot anyway I suppose, I think there’re two valid schools of thought here.
Yeah as per the TROS novelization it’s a clone body of him that he used Sith magic to transfer his spirit into, which then decayed since the Sith Eternal hadn’t perfected cloning Force-sensitives yet. When he saps the Dyad power, not only does it rejuvenate him, but it actually amps him to the most powerful we’ve ever seen.
For how much controversy this explanation causes, I actually like it. It’s a nice connection to him learning about cloning during the prequel era and it only makes sense to me, plus it’s just as convoluted as any of his other plans in the prequels lol. But FWIW I’m somehow who loved Palpatine’s return in TROS and don’t think the movie could’ve made sense any other way.