What If? The Sith fail to get Revenge?

[johnreiter]

In this scenario, the Jedi manage an eleventh hour victory against the Sith, in this way.

During the duel in the Senate Chamber, Yoda is thrown to the floor, and Palatine laughs. He wants Yoda to think he is still going strong, so that Yoda will retreat instead of continuing the fight (as happened in the original timeline). In reality, Sidious is even more exhausted than Yoda.

ITTL, Yoda sees through Sidious' ruse, and jumps back into the fight, managing to slay Darth Sidious just as more Senate Guards arrive.

On Mustafar, Darth Vader senses his Master's death in the force. This shakes him, and makes him more aggressive and careless. Obi-Wan ends up killing him.

What happens next? I assume that, even if whoever becomes the new Chancellor rescinds Order 66, the Jedi will have to go into hiding for a few generations. Between Palpatine's propaganda, and the fact that Yoda was witnessed killing the "beloved chancellor," the Jedi will be persona non grata for a while.

Would the Empire still come to exist? Have the forces put into play by Sidious already gone too far to stop, even without him at the wheel? And if so, who would take charge?

 

[Skallagrim]

Most Jedi have already been slain. The Order has been effectively broken. The Vice Chancellor is Mas Amedda, who knows that Palpatine is a Sith and is in league with him. He ain't rescinding shit. In fact, he'll be on the holo-comms with military command right away, informing them of the attack on the Chancellor, and declaring a military emergency that would (presumably) allow for rule by decree.

He was established to be pretty canny and ambitious. He was clever enough to make it clear to Palpatine that he'd be content serving as a top lieutenant -- which made Palpatine consider him useful and reliable. With Palpatine gone, Amedda suddenly has a real shot at the top job, though. He may cleverly choose not to reveal that Palpatine is dead, only that the "Jedi treason" has left him "grievously injured" and that Amedda is now "acting Chancellor". This might decrease potential objections to his orders, and he can always announce that Palpatine "died from his injuries" a bit later on.

The clones are still everywhere, actively out to kill all Jedi. Depending on what explanation for the clones' kill-urge you go with, the effect may wear off later-- but that's simply not relevant yet. At the moment, they're loyal soldiers, killing Jedi. Do note that Palpatine apparently needed them to immediately hunt down Jedi stragglers and other dissidents: in RotJ, we see that not long after the attack on the Temple (with Anakin leading a legion of clones), Obi-Wan and Yoda enter the Temple, and only a token presence remains. Evidently, all those clone troopers were immediately needed elsewhere. We may surmise that Palpatine's reserves are not infinite, so neither can Amedda have troops everywhere.

The military is pretty uniformly pro-Palpatine. There were elements that turned against him when he abolished the Republic, but I don't see Amedda doing that, so we may assume that the military will be near-unanymously supportive of the government, and opposed to the supposed "Jedi coup".

Similarly, by this point, Palpatine has the Senate filled with his cronies. It's established that certain trouble-makers were put on the kill list right away (part of what's keeping the clones busy is literally going door-to-door in the government district, rounding up the people Palpatine has declared enemies of the state). On the other hand, Palpatine was careful not to immediately move against well-known and popular critics of his policies-- such as Padmé Naberrie, Bail Organa, Mon Mothma, and Garm Bel Iblis. These constitute a minority in the Senate, however. Even if Amedda is less able to keep everyone "in line", there's still going to be an overwhelming pro-administration majority in the Senate. Meaning that ousting Amedda as Acting Chancellor is a no-go.

The surviving Jedi have only one option: go into hiding for now, link up with Palpatine's critics, gather as much evidence as possible that Palpatine was a Sith who orchestrated the entire war -- and do everything to get that information out to the public. There's a lot of dirty laundry, and Mas Amedda doesn't have all of it, either. He can't just destroy all the evidence, because he doesn't even have access to (or knowledge of) all of it. Without Palpatine, his faction is also robbed of an extremely powerful Force-wielder who can manipulate on a galactic scale. Darth Vader is gone, too. The Inquisitiorius isn't formed.

Result: once the "surprise effect" is gone, a bunch of clones aren't going to be effective at hunting the Jedi. There is no effective Purge, without Palpatine and Vader. Most Jedi who survived Order 66 will thus remain alive. In fact, some who were taken and warped into Inquisitors will remain Jedi. There will be scores, if not hundreds of Jedi still out there. They'll be able to regroup and link up, and without powerful Force users to fight them, Amedda's government will be hard-pressed to stop that.

There is also the fact that Amedda is not human, and Palpatine had been encouraging Human High Culture bigotry in his faction. Also, he selected officers based on whether they'd be useful in his future Empire. That is: he selected them based on their willingness to be sadists, bigots, and murderous thugs. One or more coup attempts cannot be ruled out at all. Soon enough, the militarist rule may well be widely considered... disappointing... by a majority of the galactic populace.

There is a basis for an eventual restoration of civil government, then.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

One effect is that the Empire will not quite get the grip it had originally, and without Palpatine and Vader holding the leash you can probably expect even more infighting. Mas will be in charge for the moment, but Tarkin will be snapping at his heels soon enough.

That alongside hundreds of Jedi still being alive, makes the nascent Alliance’s job a great deal easier. The Empire may fall a decade early in this scenario.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

I expect the Republic to Balkanize pretty heavily at this point. The Dark-side shroud is going to fail if it hadn't already done so when the Sith become extinct...well...till some Force ghost finds an acolyte.

All those hangers-on are going to go for their piece of the pie, and there won't be any sort of compulsion to keep them in line.

Bail Organa and Pame, if she manages to live through the events, will find they're much more able to garner support without Palpatine manipulating things in the background.

The loss of Palpatine's manipulations and prescience is what made the Empire so successful. Without it...it's just a bunch of people who are going to end up fighting over things, and many others who will just not support it without Palpy's compulsions.

 

[Sailor.X]

Technically Darth Maul and Ventress are very much alive. While not card carrying Sith. They are still Darksiders. So depending on what happens you can have another Darkside order replace the Sith.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

Technically Darth Maul and Ventress are very much alive. While not card carrying Sith. They are still Darksiders. So depending on what happens you can have another Darkside order replace the Sith.

There will always be other flavors of light/dark. The Sith maintained a VERY TIGHT grip on the majority of the dark side's influence. I'm sure there will be some other powers stepping up to the plate. Which is one of the main reasons I see balkanization happening as those other parties struggle for dominance within their spheres, then externally once power is cemented.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Darth Maul still being alive would probably just complicate things more then actually strengthen the position of Vice Chancellor Mas Amedda. The two of them seemed to be a pretty good combination with all things considered and despite Mas Amedda's political savvy, he didn't seem to have the resolve that some of the other nascent Imperial leadership had like Tarkin or Admirals Tenant and Screed or the ISB guy Yularen. The Vice-Chancellor only has control of the military inasmuch as he has control of the military officers that lead the Republic military... unless he can wield the same Chancellor level control Palpatine did over the Clone Army in which case, maybe his reign is more secure from rivals in the nascent Empire.

Having other literal darksiders running about would complicate things because Palpatine hid the idea he was a force user, or otherwise commanded the respect of those who knew he was a Dark Lord, and Darth Vader was Darth Vader. I can't see Darth Maul who, as smart as he is, managing to thug and intimidate his way into Imperial power on anything approaching a scale of that of Palpatine or even Anakin Skywalker.

The main thing is that the Jedi Order is destroyed but there's still dozens, if not hundreds of Jedi left and along with Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda, there are other randoms out there like Quinlan Vos and Ahsoka Tano and the assorted Jedi from The Force Unleashed if that's canon. Plus the known minority in the Senate with their disgusting Republic sympathies. And to get rid of the Jedi, and maybe rogue DarkSiders like Darth Maul, you'll have to use conventional Imperial forces and clones and bounty hunters to try and get them and without a nigh undefeatable Darth Vader and a coterie of Inquisitors to do so, it's going to be pretty hard to do.

The Galaxy could readily slip into another Civil War if Mas Amedda and the nascent Empire play their cards wrong and systems do start slipping through their fingers if they react too strong in trying to crush the Jedi and those protecting them, or acting too passive inversely and showing a sign of weakness for the burgeoning Empire.

Plus the suddenness of the death of the Emperor means that while the Droid Armies and Fleets are apparently mostly shut down, the rise of the Empire in compelling the surviving CIS leadership to surrender doesn't have the Chancellor's/Darth Sidious' backing, just Mas as the Chancellor. In this timeline the Empire stated they'd offer clemency and the remaining CIS leadership seemed to think Sidious was still offering amnesty (lol) but there's no guarantee of that here with everything that might come out. The Empire will still likely have to spend resources on finishing off the Separatists... which I think they can do... but it'll be a diversion at a time when they still have Republican sympathy and dozens of Jedi romping about.

The new Empire might last years... but it won't come close to what it was and I don't think would even last as long as it did in the DIsney Canon. And it could quite possibly collapse and fragment much earlier if it doesn't survive the initial few years and challenges brought upon it.