Jar Jar Bricks

If the average movie-goer has questions, then sure, all they have to do is re-watch the prequels! That isn’t a bad thing. I’m sure if people had questions coming out of the movie they would have looked it up and an article would have filled them in immediately and found a satisfactory answer. And besides, this edit will (likely) never leave the confines of this forum, so it’s not like we genuinely have to consider a large demographic, just the most hardcore of fans.

If you ask me, Palpatine having a son we never knew about is way more loaded than Palpatine influencing the Force into creating a birth without a father. People should know that about Anakin’s character from Episode 1. Maybe we could weave the fatherless-birth part back into the draft so it rings more bells.

Remember, this is the final twist/reveal of the Skywalker saga. Not of the Rey saga. Or, as people rightly call it now, the Palpatine saga. This is the only way to make everything right. I’m convinced of it.

NeverarGreat said:

Well if there is no direct creation of Rey or Anakin by Palpatine, then I don’t see why it couldn’t be left vague in the final wording such that the audience could interpret it several different ways. Something like ‘My grandfather was intended as a vessel for Palpatine’s spirit…and so were you’. That sort of thing. Nothing that directly states they were created by him, but something that could easily point in that direction if you so desired.

The new point/struggle of this movie would be the fact that Palpatine was the initiator for the Skywalker bloodline and Rey’s creation. And also the fact that he claims them all as his own. By the end, we are supposed to believe that he never should have claimed them as his own. They have their own free will and agency, they aren’t Palpatine’s, they’re Skywalkers, created by the Force to do good. It’s intentionally left vague just how much control he had over the life that the Force creates. But we know that the Force must consist of a powerful light, and a powerful dark. This is exactly what the Skywalkers and Rey appear to have in their blood. It’s about recognizing that their darkness isn’t of Palpatine, it’s of the Force itself, balanced.

Nah, it really isn’t that complex. I summarize it in a single sentence in my last draft: “The Emperor influenced the Force itself into creating life.” The reason it works so well is because it relies on lore and storylines already established in the prequels.

That’s the point of my wording: he doesn’t create them directly. They are indirect creations of his. He simply pesters the Force itself with enough dark magic for it to do it for him. This is literally how him and his master created Anakin in canon. That being said, there is probably a cap on how much power the Force can bestow on somebody to counteract what it perceives as a threat.

I think that runs counterintuitive to how the concept of the clone body is presented, though. The reason it’s crumbling away is because of how many Sith spirits are present within it. Artificial lifeforms clearly aren’t cutting it when it comes to Palpatine’s spirit, just take a look at Snoke, too. Whether he always had those other spirits within him as a part of the rule of two or if they were summoned along with his own spirit from Force hell is irrelevant. If he portioned a part of that off to Rey from across the galaxy (which seemingly should involve a ritual with both people present), he should actually deteriorate LESS. But then he would have less power, and a potential rival, neither of which is in his character to desire. The reason why the idea that he created Rey and Anakin as raw Force beings makes so much sense is because he’s trying to find a person that has enough potential with the Force, and specifically the dark side, to accept all of his Sith spirits without instantly withering away. For a more detailed description of this concept, read Burbin’s last post on here.

But if he was still clinging onto life through the offspring of the Skywalker’s, why would he even bother doing this with a random little girl, as well? She also cannot be called “a Palpatine” in this sequence of events. My goal going into this whole process was to preserve as much as possible about Ascendant while making her natural connection to Palpatine less dumb and not rely on as many hard retcons. Filling in the lingering questions in the saga such as why Kylo seemingly knows of a girl in TFA, why the Skywalkers all turned out so dark, and how Anakin was created are bonuses.

EDIT: BTW, Colin’s script of Episode IX was going to answer why he knew of a girl on Jakku. Apparently he would have killed her parents and left her there. Now, that doesn’t make sense timeline-wise, but it’s an indication that these seeds were planted in TFA in order for a suitable answer to be made.

Since we already have Nev’s dialogue for options #1 and #2 listed above, I’ll also share the dialogue below that we collaborated on for option #1 wherein the only hard retcon is the part Rey plays in the theme of Episode 8:

“I pushed you in the desert because I needed to see it… I needed you to see it… who you are. The dark side is your birthright, Rey…”

“You’re lying.”

“I’d never lie to you. Your parents were no one. Junk traders expecting a child they never wanted.”

“Don’t!”

“But no father of yours had any part in your conception.”

“I don’t want this!”

“…just like Vader.”

“No!”

“You’ve seen it, haven’t you? Your destiny.”

(Rey sees the vision of herself on the Sith throne)

“Luke saw the same fate in me. But you and I don’t want it.”

“Stop talking.”

“Why? I know you better than anyone else.”

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“The Force showed me glimpses of a girl like you long before we first met. When we fought, in the forest, the power inside of you fully awakened. You didn’t reveal yourself to me alone… you were exposed to the Emperor… just as he’d intended.”

(Visions of Rey beating Kylo on Starkiller, falling into the dark cave, etc.)

“No!”

(A pedestal shatters and the mask of Vader falls to the ground)

“So that’s where you are.”

“Before you chose the Jedi, Palpatine wanted you alive."

“No…”

"I’ll come tell you why.”

---

“Rey… I know the rest of our story.”

“Tell me.”

"The Emperor influenced the Force itself into creating life. First my grandfather, and then you. You were his chosen heir. You… are rightfully a Palpatine.”

"The Emperor only wants us to fight each other, so his most worthy heir can claim the throne. But he hasn’t realized the strength of our connection, Rey… a bond, not of blood, but shared power in the Force. We’ll end him and the Sith, and create a new order, together…”

---

“What are you most afraid of?”

“Myself.”

“Because you’re a Palpatine. Leia knew you shared the same struggle as her.”

“She never told me. She still trained me.”

“Because she saw your spirit. Your heart. Rey… some things are stronger than blood. Confronting fear is the destiny of a Jedi…”

---

“She was quick to learn in our training. But Leia feared the darkness that had lived in our father, and lived on in us. She surrendered her saber to me and said that one day it would be picked up again…by someone with the strength to overcome that darkness.”

I’m more or less fine with the one Hal shared by Nev. The only thing I’d change is having her and Anakin created through the dark side. I’d simply replace that phrasing with “the Force itself” to make it more ambiguous just how much of a part he played in it.

I don’t think the Rey Horcrux idea would fit well into that specific draft. I think that needs to be it’s own thing. I’ve said this recently, and I’ll share it again, but I really think we need two different versions here:

1. Rey has been powerful since birth for a reason, her power was simply dormant (I’d prefer not to retcon her parents being bad, either, but whatever)
2. Rey had some sort of vague destiny with the Force that results in her getting supercharged with power despite her being nothing initially

Again, I don’t think the second one makes sense in canon. The only way I can explain it is using the dreaded M word so here we go. If Rey were born with few midichlorians like everyone else, that means she only has as many receptors to it for super basic stuff. She can’t get more of these because it’s a biological thing, not a spiritual thing. So even if she were “chosen” by the Force for a certain destiny, she cannot possibly hope to attain the level of power on par with a Skywalker which we see her have. Her having a Palpatine horcrux in her is like… a fan-fictiony way to give her that power boost. Because, as I said, she needs something biological, not spiritual. And besides, I’m sure she will still be extremely powerful in the upcoming Rey movie, assumably after Palpatine’s influence has gone away. I think that’s the biggest problem with this idea is that if we rely on it to explain any sort of power in Rey, that will instantly get nullified by her upcoming movie. It also doesn’t allow us to get away with still calling her a Palpatine and getting involved with things that are “stronger than blood”.

Maybe I’m just crazy and the second option I listed is something that appeals to people on here. Probably because nobody on here likes the midichlorians anyways. But I’m not super interested in making something that doesn’t feel like it could have come out in December 2019. I can guarantee something like this wouldn’t have come out because it retcons our understanding of the Force from Episode 1 in order to not retcon the “spirit” of Episode 8.

I do love me some Harry Potter stuff. Although I’m not sure how other people would feel about blatantly ripping off another franchise.

EDIT: I just realized we’d also run into the problem of blood not being involved here, so some of Luke’s dialogue to Rey wouldn’t make sense. In fact, her being referred to as a “Palpatine” wouldn’t make much sense in general. Harry isn’t called Voldemort because he has a piece of his soul, he’s still just Harry Potter. And I’m still of the belief that Rey being so exponentially stronger than the average Jedi demands an explanation. But yeah this idea is a good starting point.

Thank you Burbin for stating what I’ve been trying to say for a while. Words are hard sometimes.

Starkiller, I don’t think that’s the difference at this point. The difference is between Rey being conceived as somebody important all along and her being born as nothing but later ascending to greater heights. I personally believe the latter is incongruous with canon due to the nature of Force-sensitivity at birth and how powerful Rey needs to be in the end.

NeverarGreat said:

I agree that the Rey as a Force creation by Palpatine is the closest we’ve gotten to solving this puzzle. It is tantalizingly close to working for me, and solves a lot of other mysteries as well.

But there still exists that fundamental incongruity with TLJ.

Stepping back a bit, I just had a thought about TROS that seems obvious now but hadn’t considered before: Why do we assume that Palpatine’s children and grandchildren would be strong in the Force?

Granted the Skywalker’s power in the Force seems to be preserved through lineage, but that doesn’t seem to be true for anyone else. Well, perhaps Yoda’s offspring, if that is indeed his offspring, but that just raises the question of why the Jedi wouldn’t raise families if it’s likely their children would inherit their power. I think it’s better than even odds that any spawn of Palpatine would have no power in the Force. In fact, why would Palpatine have offspring if they could potentially become rivals?

I realize that this is somewhat tangential to the current discussion since we’re working off of a different theory now, but it may stand examining if we are to figure out just what sort of Force user Rey can be. By the methods in use by the Jedi Order for over a thousand generations, a powerful Jedi coming from a random family would be the norm, not the exception.

The “fundamental incongruity” with TLJ can still be solved without changing Rey in TROS. Finn is a nobody who now inspires an entire stormtrooper insurrection (Ascendant v4). I’m sure we haven’t seen the last of broom boy, either. There will surely be tons of previously unknowns in the next movie who we’ll get to dig our teeth into. But the task of defeating the Emperor has always been something that somebody equally as powerful as him needs to do.

I’m not sure what exactly you’re comparing the Skywalker lineage to. Because we’ve only really touched on the Skywalker saga, there aren’t many other examples of children to Force-sensitives. The Jedi aren’t supposed to have attachments, either, so having children is a big no-no. But I see no reason not to believe that in at least 90% of cases Force-sensitivity is passed from parent to child. It probably functions like the magical gene in Harry Potter. Yeah, there are some squibs every now and then, but most of the time they get the same powers. Pretty sure Cal Kestis will be training that girl of his Force-sensitive friend turned evil, for example. And occasionally somebody magical is born to a muggle (normal person). But they’re never the strongest.

Palpatine would only create potential “heirs” because he wants the strongest to survive. I doubt he’s comfortable with the idea of creating his own offspring, because yeah, he’d probably see that as a threat to himself. He’d probably see that as a weakness on his part. But having others do the dirty work of raising the children and then waiting to see who strikes out with the dark side? Yeah, that sounds like Palpatine.

Oh, and the reason we “assume” they’re this strong is because it’s directly stated in the prequels and all current canon media. Yoda literally stops Obi-Wan from going to Palps because he knows how outmatched he’d be, and we know Anakin at full power is even stronger than Yoda. As Qui-Gon says in TPM, no Jedi in their recorded history has ever had as much potential as Anakin.

Well, the trouble is that I think my part is truest to the saga as a whole. Which, as the final chapter in a 9-part saga, I think that should take priority. We can focus on the previously unknowns once this saga is over.

Let me try to explain my thought process that led to my original idea right here:

1. The Skywalker bloodline is freakishly powerful, to the point where the only reason eyebrows weren’t raised in the Jedi Order is because of a prophecy. Nobody has ever, or will ever, be as strong as those in this bloodline.
2. This prophecy turned out to be a whole load of shit, really. Yeah, Vader finally threw Palpatine down the reactor shaft after 20 years, but this “lasting balance” only lasted for about 20 years because Ben Solo turns to the dark side and 10 years later Palpatine announces his return. Huh?
3. At this point, the prophecy is more than likely to have been “misread” as Yoda states in Episode 3.
4. There’s a new girl in town who is freakishly powerful, able to defeat Kylo Ren, who hails from a bloodline that had the strongest Jedi ever on it.
5. The only way that makes sense is if she has the same raw Force potential as a Skywalker. The only way that is possible is if she were conceived the same way as a Skywalker.
6. How was Anakin conceived? Some canon lore might state that the light side of the Force did it, but then how come he has such strong dark tendencies? How come his descendants all struggle so much with the dark?
7. Watching the movies alone, it appears that Palpatine greatly hinted at himself being responsible (the opera show they’re watching is a visual hint, and he gives Anakin that “look” as he describes the process of creating life).
8. Alright, let’s roll with that. Good news is that Rey can now follow the same origins as Anakin since they both hail from nobodies. Rey’s unexplained powers are finally given a reason, as well as her taking on the name of Skywalker. Rey’s parents can be the dark inverse of Shmi.

Here’s my thought process on why this other idea doesn’t work:

1. Let’s say Rey is a nobody that isn’t as powerful as the Skywalkers, because no up and coming Jedi should realistically be. Palpatine cannot put his “darkness” into a baby Rey to give her more power and bring her up to parity, because her body simply wouldn’t be able to accept that much power. I also find it strange he would do such a thing. That isn’t in his character to willingly give his own power to others, that’s a Jedi trait.
2. Okay, so Rey needs to be conceived with all of the power that she will ever be able to harness in life. In order for this to be possible, she must either be genetically related to Palpatine, or a creation of the Force akin to the Skywalkers. We know that no other Jedi has ever been as powerful as the Skywalkers, and we’re trying to avoid a direct Palpatine attachment here.
3. Yes, anybody can tap into the Force. But to have a complete nobody be more powerful than the Skywalkers flies in the face of their entire saga. I don’t care about “Well, she’s that powerful because that’s just what the Force wanted/intended” because it’s a lazy answer and clearly the Force never gave a damn about the Skywalkers at this point because things wouldn’t have gotten this bad for them otherwise (read my initial points on my idea). It feels like they get a complete and utter shaft in this way. And in their own saga, no less.

I’m pretty sure it was RL. Maybe the project file still exists. Although, some of the lines are spliced, and what we want is a completely blank slate.

I just watched the hangar part at least and it seems like they were able to remove his previous lines and replace them in a few places pretty cleanly.

Who made this part of the Nobody Ascendant edit, exactly? I was under the impression Hal was just hosting/compiling it all.

Yeah, there could potentially be 3 different versions here:

1. Rey Palpatine with no TLJ retcons (my version)
2. Rey Nobody (keeps the same “spirit” as TLJ)
3. Rey Palpatine / Ascendant

Obviously I’m going to pursue #1 first and foremost.

The sad fact of life is that unless you are naturally good at something, no matter how much effort you put in you likely aren’t going to be as good as those who do have that natural talent. It’s why professional sports players exist. And as we see in these movies, Rey barely has to put any effort in for a payout only precedented by the Skywalkers, so she must fall into the latter category. This can be an important lesson for kids to learn.

Yes there does because she is clearly just as strong if not stronger than a Skywalker. The Jedi Order had never seen anybody as strong as Anakin before. That screams “unnatural” in both cases, which is exactly what my proposed solution confirms.

We fundamentally disagree on the concept of the Force. That’s okay. But I’m sticking with what George Lucas clarified about it through his last works.

Oh, also, in term’s of Rey’s reason for anger going in to the Palpy fight, I think it’s sufficient enough for her to now be aware of the fact that this man is the reason for Darth Vader’s terror in the galaxy, Ben Solo’s turn to the dark, and, more indirectly, the deaths and struggles of Luke and Leia.

As for why Rey doesn’t appear malnourished and was only abandoned at the age of 6, this matches the idea of having abusive parents. Some days are good, others are awful, and then you reconcile, and the cycle repeats. Eventually, her parents must have reached a breaking point and noped out. They gave raising her a chance, confirmed it was something they always knew they never wanted, and sold her.

TLJ focuses almost entirely on Rey’s parentage. I think preserving that is all that matters. Fun fact: Rey is never actually called “nobody” in that movie. Herself being “nothing” is only mentioned by Kylo once, and it feels almost like a footnote in their conversation after the main reveal. Yes, broom boy is a true nobody who can touch the Force, that’s touching and all, but that doesn’t mean he’s strong enough to topple an entire Empire.

EDIT: Also, for something to awaken itself, it has to be dormant or resting to begin with. So Rey HAS to have the potential for those great and powerful things within herself all along. Not everybody can have that, or else everybody would be walking around being OP in the Force. There’s a reason Ben calls Luke their “last hope”. They can’t pluck some random dude off the streets of Tatooine to become a Jedi as strong as Luke. There HAS to be a genetic factor here.

MTFBWY is a phrase used by non-Force users only because the Force can use those people to accomplish things even without their direct attunement to it or realization of what’s actually happening. But saying that to the average person is never gonna result in them shooting lightning out of their fingertips.

Quite frankly, I don’t care if this is one interpretation of how using the Force works coming out of the theater in '77. It’s 2024. We know how the Force works in people according to the prequels, books, and shows we have. And you didn’t really give a good argument to explain it “always being there” in Rey according to TFA and TLJ.

EDIT: Heck, according to your own edit of Starlight what you’re describing is NOT what happens. The dark side awakens in her, the Force never “chooses” her. It’s what retroactively makes the title of that movie kinda badass. It’s never specified which aspect of the Force it is that awakens.

Everybody has the Force, but some families are more capable of being attuned to it. Rey is clearly VERY attuned to it, on the same level as the Skywalkers. It’s from George Lucas himself so I refuse to deviate from that.

StarkillerAG said:

Personally, I still think the Plagueis life-creation route is the best one to go down. It connects Rey to Palpatine in a way that doesn’t feel contrived, while at the same time completely preserving everything said in the TLJ reveal. If you don’t like the idea of Palpatine creating Anakin, you can even have Rey be a sort of “dark Chosen One”: a Sith counterpart to Anakin, created by Palpatine as his personal revenge for Vader’s betrayal.

This. I intentionally worded it in such a way that it’s unclear if the Force merely reacted the first time around (the current lore explanation) or if he did intentionally make Anakin as well.

And Eddie, besides my previous explanation of how Rey knows she’s always had the Force in her (“Something inside me has always been there, and now it’s awake”) and all children have to be born with the Force according to canon, that also sounds quite convoluted.

But according to canon, you are born with your propensity for the Force. This is backed up by every canon source: movies, comics, The Clone Wars, Tales of the Jedi with baby Ahsoka. It’s unavoidable. Rey even says this in TLJ concerning herself: “Something inside me has always been there. And now it’s awake.”

I’m sorry, but this approach just isn’t canon friendly and it doesn’t line up with several other things established in the sequels as good as the other idea. Whether you like it or not, the Skywalker saga IS about bloodlines. TLJ merely set up another powerful bloodline in Rey. At least with this other idea Rey is genetically unrelated to Palpatine, as are the Skywalkers. Giving us 3 different powerful bloodlines (Rey’s, Skywalker, and Palpatine). They just are creations of his he seeks to adopt/possess.

I can already hear EddieDean saying that you guys are overcomplicating things again lmao. We seriously need to stop focusing on her parents, too.

Not necessarily. Anakin would still be selected by Qui-Gon due to his natural propensity for the Force and mysterious nature of his birth aligning with prophecy. By Nev’s new idea, Palpatine’s actions would be why he becomes the moody and impulsive teenager in Episode 2, not explain why his bloodline is so gifted with the Force to begin with. And Rey must have had some natural propensity for the Force like Anakin to make her a viable candidate for Palp’s darkening of her, so to speak. So you still have to deal with powerful bloodlines created by the Force regardless. The only difference is in my current idea Palpatine is the one that actually wants the Force to make these bloodlines, and pushed it into creating them in the first place. Which explains significantly more in Star Wars canon, and doesn’t conflict with anything, as I’ve stated in my previous posts on this page.

I think that’s reading a bit too into things though, Raditz. Nowhere in Nev’s draft does it say that Palpatine had a vision which showed him Rey would be the most suitable person in all the galaxy for him to give most of his own power to. Nor should it, because that would be super clunky to implement. At the end of the day, I just don’t buy that a Palpatine barely clinging to life in a clone body is gonna give up most of his OWN power to supercharge some random little girl. I think this would end up being a problem for the majority of audience members. The far more likely thing he’d do is that he resorts to his old way of ordering a Force-empowered baby through the Midichlorian Express. The problem he then has to deal with is that the baby gets airdropped at a random location in the galaxy, so he can’t immediately come and pick her up. Which is another problem with Nev’s idea - he’d know all along where baby Rey was located. He would have come for her far sooner than the age we see her at in TFA’s vision. Probably would have killed her parents right after she was born.

I’m thinking about modifying the largest body paragraph for even more congruence with TFA. Honestly, anything that makes this reveal feel like it was planned out from the very beginning is welcome here IMO:

(Rey sees the vision of herself on the Sith throne)

“Luke saw the same fate in me. But you and I don’t want it.”

“Stop talking.”

“Why? I know you better than anyone else.”

(Cutaway to heroes capture)

“The Force showed me glimpses of a girl like you long before we first met. When we fought, in the forest, the darkness inside of you fully awakened. You revealed yourself to the Emperor that day… just as he always intended.”

(Visions of Rey beating Kylo on Starkiller, falling into the dark cave, etc.)

“No!”

This way we can justify Kylo asking his officer “What girl?” because he has a specific girl in his mind that could have stolen the Falcon. Furthermore, his line “The girl I’ve heard so much about” takes on a different meaning. It also makes sense how he later states that the longer Rey is roaming about, the stronger she will become. Even at that moment, he knows that the two of them are somehow related.

Then I’d have to extend it back again. I only shortened it for fear that it would be too long, but with the whole “perfected in darkness” thing gone we might be good: “The Emperor manipulated the Force itself into creating life. First my grandfather, and then you. Both initially chosen as his heir. You… are rightfully a Palpatine.”

Nev, I don’t see too much wrong with your sequence of events. The only trouble is that it’s unlike Papa Palps to share his personal power with anyone. Your idea also begs the question much more than our current idea on why these random nobodies were selected for this operation. Surely there was a couple in his Sith cult with a child who he could perform this ritual with? That way he trusts them to do what’s in his own benefit. At least with our current idea, we have Anakin’s own birth being to a nobody to back it up, so we just have to take it as a fact that whenever Palps tells the Force to make a baby that it goes to some random woman across the galaxy. We also have the benefit of lining up with Rey’s TLJ dark side cave vision where she can’t see her parents. Our current line of “Your parents, Rey… they had no part in your conception…” suggests that was because she is genetically unrelated to them, only to the Force itself. We also make Rey a Skywalker in every sense of the word except exact genetic makeup.