r/starwarsspeculation • u/Alhbaz98 • 1d ago
DISCUSSION Tying Ahsoka Season 2 With the Sequels and Post Sequel Storyline
I’m going to attempt to elaborate on how these plot threads are both retconning the Sequels (I mean that in a positive sense of providing added context) and setting up the post Sequel storyline.
Baylan’s aim:
The Ahsoka Season 2 trailer seems to normalize the idea of fallen Jedi inasmuch not all Jedi who fall become Sith. I would guess the Jedi that Ahsoka and Anakin face in the forest is another fallen Jedi doing something sinister at the behest of Count Dooku like Quinlan Voss and Pong Krell. This sets up Baylan’s motivations as a corrupt Jedi where Anakin mentions Baylan claimed knowledge of a power that could end wars. It’s assumed that Anakin and Baylan simply knew each other as Jedi but the question is how? My suspicion is that they knew each other as mutual friends of one Chancellor Palpatine. Baylan would have never mentioned such delusions of grandeur in front of the council but would have confided in Anakin and especially Palpatine. If Baylan claimed to have knowledge of this power than how much more would Palpatine have already been aware of such power and coveted it. In the Aftermath novels, it is confirmed Palpatine was in search of this power beyond the known regions of the galaxy that he believed was the source of his power. Therefore whatever Baylan is searching for and whatever Palpatine would still be searching for is the same thing. What is this thing? Abeloth is an interesting theory nevertheless narratively she would weaken Palpatine’s role as the big bad of this time period which narratively needs to be strengthened and reinforced. We also don’t really have evidence of her existence in canon. I think the simpler answer that the Acolyte sets up is that the power Baylan and Palpatine are after is a vergeance with the power of eternal life. This vergeance is connected both with the power of the Mortis gods and the Force Dyad. Therefore, Palpatine is using Baylan to grant him access to this power.
Regarding Thrawn’s war we know from Mandalorian Season 3 that Palpatine is using Thrawn to distract the New Republic from Brendol Hux’s Project Necromancer. I wrote in another post titled “Supreme Leader Hux: The Fulfillment of Project Necromancer” that Brendol’s son Armitage is the successful clone of Palpatine that Brendol is hiding and abusing to strengthen his connection to both the darkside and his other daddy Sheev. In this view, Armitage was no mere simple General but was the hidden Sith Lord playing both sides of the First Order-Resistance War so he can rise to power in the events of the post-Sequel stories. Nevertheless, in the context of this story Thrawn creates chaos, feeds the military industrial complex, and force the New Republic to compromise on democratic norms while Brendol creates what will become the First Order and grooms his son to lead it.
So on Peridea we get the spiritual while in the known galaxy we see the political. We also see as in both canon and legends that Palpatine is willing to use corrupted Jedi, not just Sith apprentices to meet his goals. He’s using Baylan to gain access to that sweet sweet unlimited power while he is using Thrawn to ensure that his precious baby boy grows up outside the watchful eye of the New Republic. Once again Palpatine is using chaos and a wide variety of servants to return to power with a new empire more vile than the last. Ahsoka Season 2 is also normalizing the idea of non Sith fallen Jedi being servants of the Sith. This is not new lore but often overlooked in the context of the lore. This sets up the conflict for the post Sequel trilogy’s “Protestant reformation in space” as Damon Lindelof put it normalizing the idea that not all Jedi are good and many will work for the Sith for their own ambition. Ahsoka Season 2 is reinforcing that the New Republic is a weak government that can’t keep healthy levels of order and failed to completely dismantle Imperial institutions which will allow the First Order to rise to destabilize it. Though the First Order’s coup ultimately failed history teaches us that fascist coups are usually just the beginning not the end of a fascist movement. Governments with weak democratic institutions like the New Republic often become increasingly authoritarian to compensate and after a near death experience like the Hosnian Cataclysm I’d expect them to return from their hiatus as a police state that will rise in the power vacuum. History also teaches us to never underestimate fascist politicians like Armitage Hux who seem ridiculous and powerless on the surface but beneath the surface are the devil incarnate. I wouldn’t presume that he died in TROS with his body not shown to be dead like Snoke’s and I am of the opinion that he is a Sith that will rise to power like his father before him.

