So, let’s talk about Emperor Palpatine’s last week leading up to the conclusion of Episode IV. Just for a moment, let’s consider the position this horrible old
space warlock was in, shall we? • Military Intelligence Director Orson Krennic colludes with ISB to commit ethnic cleansing on Ghorman. In typical Krennic fashion, this plan goes neither as smoothly nor as quickly as it
was pitched to you as being.
• Grand Imperial Admiral Thrawn disappears. Your single best military commander just disappears. Reports indicate space whales are
involved??? What??? In response to Krennic/Partagaz’s actions on Ghorman, Mon Mothma declares open rebellion on the Senare floor. Her speech is broadcast across the entire galaxy due to what is the first in an absolutely CASCADING series of failures by the ISB. Mothma successfully evades arrest, and escapes Coruscant to Force only knows
where. • Darth Vader has taken this increasingly dire moment in Imperial politics to apparently take some sort of Sith PTO at his personal residence on Mustafar. Just about as far out of reach as
he can possibly for anyone.
• There is a catastrophic data security breach at ISB. It turns out an overly ambitious field agent has been invited to several Signal groupchats about the Death Star that she wasn’t supposed to be in, and her collecting of all this vital data in one place has led to a Rebel mole piecing together that you’re building the Genocider 5000 instead of a super cool renewable energy Program.