Havok wrote:The Romulan Republic wrote:Hell, Anakin's dislike of politics was very clear in the Prequels.
Of course, this attitude will not serve him well if he's trying to replace Palpatine.
Why? Why do you have to play at politics when you say jump, and the stormtroopers point their guns and everyone then says, "how high".
That has been my point.
Why wouldn't people get their status from Vader just as they would with Palpatine? Why does the military stop following Vader, even though they do his bidding without hesitation already? Since when does an Emperor that is above reproach, can see the future, and has no fear of anyone or anything alive, with just cause, need to play at politics? Especially in an Empire where politics have been eliminated?
You guys are seriously confusing what Palpatine DID with what Darth Sidious, The Emperor was DOING. What politics did Palpatine need to play at after he dissolved what was left of the Imperial Senate? Even if you take the EU into account, Palpatine didn't deal with anyone but the most powerful, and even they paled to his position. And everyone that ever attempted to thwart Vader or his position ended up dead, no matter how cunning or well planned out their attempts were. Why does this change without Palpatine around, when Vader becomes the Avatar of the Dark Side?
The Empire is afraid of Palpatine
because he has Vader and his military, which Vader commands, despite retarded claims to the contrary. So again, why does that fall apart when what and who you are fearful of in the first place, now becomes the Emperor? Totalitarian states are run on fear, in all it's forms. Vader, even moreso that Palpatine, in the public eye, personifies that, yet for some reason, the Empire dissolves with Vader on the thrown... WHY?
Now if you want to say Vader can't run the
bureaucracy of the Empire... OK, fine. However neither could Palpatine without help. Why wouldn't Vader have that same help?
Palpatine was once a politician. He understood and could manipulate politics. He manipulated the Senate well enough to transition seamlessly from 'republic' to 'constitutional monarchy' (which is probably how a lot of senators imagined the government would look in Ep. III, with the Senate at least continuing to matter), and then to 'absolute dictatorship.'
Originally, the Senate was holding all the cards, and Palpatine was able to take those cards, and move them into his hands
largely with the consent of the people (since he didn't yet have the armed force to compel obedience). Moreover, he was then able to deal the cards out by delegating authority, while still keeping enough mutually balanced power blocs (Tarkin, Vader, the imperial bureaucracy, the imperial intelligence services) that none of them grew powerful enough to threaten his own position.
This is a skill that Vader lacks. Vader replaces this skill with the use of personal terror. He's not stupid or a brute, but he has very little, if any, political subtlety. So the real question is: can Vader manage a complicated political environment where he must master ALL aspects of the Imperial state, not just maintain his own specialist position as Palpatine's hatchet-man and confidant?
Palpatine's political skill was such that he could easily outmaneuver any opposition within the state- we know this because he did exactly that to secure power in the first place. Where is the evidence of Vader's political skill? Without that skill, and without people who are personally
loyal to him, not just in the sense of 'will obey' but in the sense of 'actively seek to further his interests,' he's not going to make all that good an emperor. Nobody does.
Who does Vader have who's loyal to him that way, the way that people like Himmler and Goebbels were to Hitler? Men who could be trusted with independent power over political features of the state, because the dictator could depend on them to further
his interests, and not their own, so long as he lived?
Havok wrote:EU aside though, we know that Palpatine needs and wants to continue Sith dominance of the galaxy...
How? I mean, we see evidence that Palpatine values his Sith knowledge, but is there evidence that he views it as important enough to risk being overthrown by an apprentice as a 'real' Sith would?
Palpatine in the movies has a history of taking on damaged apprentices- Maul, who's a brute, Dooku, who's old and somewhat limited in power compared to the great masters, and Vader, who very quickly winds up mutilated and weakened and so psychologically dependent on Palpatine that it's almost impossible to imagine Vader betraying him
except under the incredibly extreme circumstances we see in RotJ.
Why does he do that? Is it because that's the best he can find? Or is that because he legitimately fears the idea of taking on a Sith apprentice to serve as confidant, hatchet-man, and enabler of his schemes, but who is potentially stronger than he is?