The biggest roadblock to this edit is ironically enough a random scene between Finn and Poe. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if it’s possible to change the beginning of parts of Finn’s lines in the scene like I had originally intended due to troubles merging an AI sentence with a regular one. I’m wondering if it all makes enough sense just by reinserting a final line for Finn?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LSooyqxhfp01IBupdWM04zdWoY0Ab5J1/view?usp=sharing

The original final line there was “He wanted her alive”, which Ascendant removes. I’m wondering if replacing it with “The dagger discovered Rey” is enough to clarify that neither Ochi nor Palpatine knew about her existence until he murdered her parents? The problem is that technically the word “discover” could be used in the context of merely learning somebody’s location.

The original Finn dialog is phrased in such a way to give the impression that Ochi’s mission was to find the “little girl” all along. In this edit, his mission is only to find the Emperor’s son for testing, which then escalates to Rey upon her discovery. Or maybe my impression is just because I’m familiar with the original film? I wouldn’t mind some feedback here.

EDIT: Granted, this scene already makes zero sense in the Ascendant cut since Palpatine would just want Rey dead, he shouldn’t care if it’s done in front of him on Exegol or not. So this edit would already be an improvement over Ascendant for this scene, I’m just not sure if it’s 100% there.