[Code Red]

As has been pointed out here before, by the time AOTC ends its pretty much established that Palpatine controls:

1) The clone army

2) The separatist army, which the clone army is fighting

3) The Senate (as per Count Dooku)

Not only that, he seems to have controlled them since the beginning of the movie.  He doesn't control the Jedi, but the separatists by themselves seem to be able to handle them.

So WTF?  Why doesn't he just take over?  It seems that Palpatine established his power offscreen, sometime between TPM and AOTC.

That's really all you need to know about the "plot".

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

In defence of George Lucas, this is one part of the plot that is pretty clever and does make sense.

In order to seize control, Palpatine needs 1. The Senate on his side 2. The populace on his side 3. A large army to enforce power once he's in control 4. The Jedi out of the way.

Initially, the Republic was working well enough - there were mutterings about corruption and beaurocracy taking over, but the threats were relatively minor and internal. Under these circumstances it would be nigh on impossible for Palpatine to gain the kind of power he wanted. To do that he needed a powerful, external threat that would give him the excuse to demand "emergency powers". Because no such threat existed, he needed to create one himself - hence the Separatists.

If you've ever read 1984 you'll know that war is a very powerful tool in maintaining control of the home population - people will accept all kinds of privations, indignities and curbs of rights and freedoms in the name of defeating "the enemy". This was key to Palpatine gaining absolute imperial power, since to form an effective powerbase he still needed to convince the populace that the Empire can do a better job than the Republic. Most totalitarian states started off at least initially with a grass-roots support from the general population (the Bolsheviks in Russia, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the Peasant Army in China).

The war gave him the freedom to create and use the clone army - without the war, he never would have been able to create a militia powerful enough to destroy the existing quasi-military froce, the Jedi without raising awkward questions. And, of course the clone army came in handy afterwards too...

The Separatist army would have been no use to him in terms of seizing power on their own, since their goals differed from Palpatine's. Palpy wants absolute power over the galaxy, but the Separatists want independence. If they want out of the Republic, you can be damn sure they'd want nothing to do with the Empire. Only Palpatine and Dooku know "the big picture", since the end result is everyone gets stuffed apart from them. Not many takers for that one, I imagine.

Making the Separatists "the enemy" to the Republic is a masterstroke tactically. Think about it - Palpatine wants control of the galaxy. In his position who do you want to identify and neutralise early on? The people who are likely to cause trouble - those who would want to secede from your Empire, maybe start a rebellion and especially large organisations (the Techo Union, the Trade Federation) who would support the dissidents and give them financial and technological backing. By "winning" the war, the Republic neutralise the Separatists and seriously weaken the organisations that support them, so that they are still useful to Palpatine but not powerful enough to be a threat individually. The war also weakens the Republic to the point where the most powerful force is the Clone Army, and who holds their reins?

For it to work, the one thing neither side must ever know is that they're being manipulated, and by allowing the Jedi to see Jango Fett fighting for the separatists, Dooku risked being found out. It's been said "Jango's a bounty hunter, it was just a job, blah blah", but the woman on Kamino made the comment to Obi-Wan that "we keep him (Jango) here." In other words, there was some kind of ongoing contract situation. Obi-Wan seeing Jango at Genosis should have raised many questions in his mind, "breach of contract" being the least of them.

This post has been edited by Code Red: 19 May 2005 - 03:49 AM

[Casual Fan]

I half buy the above explanation. However the problem isn't just Jango Fett.

The Senate had no army. None. That has been established. OK, so maybe the Senate is like the UN, and the individual planets have armies? Apparently they don't. Naboo at least doesn't have an army.

So the Sith want to take over a Republic that can not defend itself, and can not call on some ally or federate for help. The Sith, however, can commission both a droid army (from the Trade Federation) and a clone army from Kamino. Apparently neither the Senate nor the Jedi are organized enough to do this.

And the droid army by itself is apparently enough to give the Jedi, the only thing the Republic has in its corner, a hard time.

So why is this so difficult? Why the elaborate plan to defeat a defenseless government?

This post has been edited by Casual Fan: 20 May 2005 - 12:20 PM

[DarthTherion]

I think the Geonosis battle is supposed to indicate how desperate the Jedi are. They need some kind of military to fight the threat, but there is no standing army in the Republic. They see the appearance of this clone army as a windfall, their only chance to stop the threat, something they need badly. They will act against the Separatists immediately, when there is still a chance of destroying them at the very outset of a potential war.

Palpatine does control both sides. His goal is to manipulate both sides into a war so that he can "legitimately" take power. The democratic process grants him "emergency powers," and continues to do so as he prolongs the war. By the end of the Clone Wars, he is the senate. He has all of its powers. If he had not taken these steps to gain popular support, he never could have controlled thousands of star systems.

Hmmm, I was going to make a point about Dooku trying to kill Amidala making no sense, but after thinking it through, it does make sense. Nevermind.

Maybe a better illustration of the stupidity of the Jedi is the tactics they employ in the arena. The attack is poorly planned...I know, "Jedi are peace-keepers, not soldiers," but.....

I guess the point is that they're mortal like everyone else and can definitely be killed by large numbers of troops.