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How do?

In this thread, we’ll hopefully be spitballing about the wider Star Wars myths, kicking off with certain happenings in Episode IX. This is not a thread to discuss Episode IX’s relative merits as a film. If you’re just here to dunk on it, please refrain.

Now, as I’m assuming you’ll know through one route or another, Episode IX includes a plot about finding a Sith way finder. As part of that string, we find out that whilst Threepio can translate the Sith language, he’s forbidden from actually translating it.

But...who forbade it? Well, before he’s abruptly cut off, he gets as far as saying “I believe the Senate passed”.

That of course tells us a decent slice of info. That it’s almost certainly not just Threepio, but all translator droids under the ban.

The question is....which Senate? Are we talking Old Republic, The Imperial Senate, or the New Republic? All three had senates of varying powers. And there are clear arguments as to why each in turn would make such a decision,

Old Republic - to assist the Jedi, and try to ensure Sith secrets aren’t widely known. Good old information suppression.
Imperial Senate - well, Palpatine was definitely The Man With The Plan, no? And few knew he was Sith, even after Order 66. What better way to ensure fewer competitors than making it as hard as possible for Random Spods to read the secrets?
New Republic - Cat was well out of the bag by then. Passing such a law again makes sense. You don’t want another Vader. You don’t want another Palpatine. And you certainly don’t want randoms finding out any of Palpatine’s secrets quite so easily. Who knows what that old lunatic had stashed away?

I suspect it was the Old Republic. And I reckon Palpatine at least had a hand in it. The Republic knew the true leader of the CIS was Sith. So again a campaign of enforced ingorance among the general populace means it’s down to The Jedi to sort out the Sith. And again, it helps keep Palpatine’s machinations secret.

Yet, it doesn’t seem terribly common knowledge, as our heroes express dismay when finally Threepio has to shut up and not bombard them with info. That means one of two things to me. Either it was all done on the hush hush - or it was done a long, long time ago.

The latter would seem to exclude Palpatine’s direct involvement. That’s entirely possible. Nobody can say he wasn’t deft at turning things to his advantage. The former is also largely plausible, as if you just sort of do it, and not make a song or dance, nobody will think of trying to bypass it in advance.

But, if it was Palpatine pulling the strings again? Was it part of covering up Exegol, and what he was building there? I don’t believe for a second that his time on Exegol and the fleet building only happened post-mortem. Rather, I suspect he’d been building up his Forces there for some time, ensuring absolute loyalty among the troops.

Considering the reasons why? Many of the senior members of The Empire fought during the Clone War, faithfully serving the Republic and defending its people. How many then could be fully trusted not to go rogue once the real oppression began? Even if the answer is ‘not a huge percentage really’, it would still risk powerful starships going rogue with them.

So the Imperial Navy would be a way of immediately consolidating power. And the Final Order? They’re how you [i]keep[/] power. The means and will to shatter planets, not tied into a single Death Star. Infantry utterly devoted to your cause, raised from birth to be loyal.

I suspect Exegol was a long time in planning. Possibly begun around the loss of the first Death Star, possibly even earlier. This would explain the Xyston’s somewhat old fashioned look - because they were designed in secret decades ago, and the fleet slowly built up over time. It’s also possible the planet killer weapons were retrofitted at a later point following technological experimentation and advancement.

As for Ochi’s dagger which pointed out the Wayfinder? Yeah I got a theory. Chances are he made it himself, as I doubt he was the only Jedi Hunter abroad post-Endor. Inscribing the directions in Sith would ensure even if it was lost, the majority of the Galaxy wouldn’t see it as anything but a Dagger. And it’s even questionable whether Luke could translate it in good time, as he’d first need to learn Sith to a suitable degree. Could even have been made under Palpatine’s orders as bait to bring Luke to him. I mean, nobody knew about Exegol and the secrets therein, no? So leave some breadcrumbs, have Luke come to you (very Palpatine) and deal with him once and for all.

Point.

But.

Counterpoint.

New theory.

Evidence 1: Palpatine is the Senate. We know this from episode 3 where that secret is revealed. Every "senator" besides the naboo delegation is actually CGI, as evidenced by look at them, they clearly are. Him having his big fight with yoda in the end was him admitting it, and basically being like 'LOOK, Only the CHAIRS were ever REAL!!!"

Evidence 2: Anakin is spontaneously created by palpatine, like a yahweh or a zeus might do. And he is born with super force powers that make him very good at things, such as spinning, a highly effective trick. it follows, then, that Midichlorians being microorganisms are actually FUNGAL, anakin fights with the rodian in the dirt because the rodian knows that he is GREEN and wearing makeup, and anakin is actually a MEKBOY.

If anakin is a mekboy, a lot of things fall into place in the narrative. His mechanical knowledge. His piloting skill. His losing his human looking contact lenses and revealing his ork eyes in episode 3. His lack of knowledge surrounding human romance, because he only reproduces via spores. His corresponding knowledge that "it was obi-wan" and that's how padme is pregnant. His succumbing to the power of the waaagh when attacking sand people. His disregard for the life of those he sees as grots (younglings) as well as disrespect for their authority (yoda).

Therefore, when the thing happened in episode whatever, the senate (sheev) programmed anakin to program C-3PO to not speak sith as part of his oddboy instincts.

But isnt 3PO made of whatever more or less worthless junk parts wee Vader could acquire from Watto, Jawas etc and the laws of the Core arent really a thing out on the Rim so even with his narrative powered evil masterplan sticking a soft ban on newly produced bots shouldnt have hit 3PO

Still less daft than the dagger which treads the dunking line, Ill go with neat idea wobbly fanservice execution

Well, Threepio clearly wasn’t Anakin’s invention, as we see a similar model (TC-14 if memory serves?) aboard the TF’s ship in the films opening minutes.

So I suspect Threepio is instead made from scavenged parts. A modern Prometheus of a droid, if you will?

We can also reasonably conclude that Anakin certainly never programmed Threepio, as Anakin didn’t know so many million forms of communication.

But....it does raise an interesting question in its own right. With Threepio clearly made from scavenged parts? Is it possible the Senate thing is a relic from far longer ago than I initially thought? If Threepio’s hard drive or what ever was in a junk pile, how long had it been there? Years? Decades? Centuries? Being a dry and arid planet is better for preservation?


Mmmm! Rabbit hole!

Indeed as Star Wars isnt tech illerate like 40k it does seem to have reached a "that'll do" stage where beside plot required superweapons its mild tweaks to existing things, so bits of 3po could be ancient, depending on when Sith was part of core coding, later restricted for some reason (but not deleted for reasons)

also r2 carries part of hk47s murder many manbags directive as his kill count is huge and what does he do once the war is done, shuts down in sulk only coming back online once the prospect of deleting many organics is back on

Well the easy answer is C3P0 was rebuilt by Anakin 30+ years before Star Wars (and built who knows how many years before that) so unless the Sith prohibition was a software update it must have been before then.

That being said I like the idea of Palpatine getting that prohibition passed, the kids can't learn Sith if was ban the language!

I'd say the Old, Old Republic. As in a longstanding ban from the time when the Republic regularly faced Sith Empires.

Palpatine doing it around the time of the prequels doesn't make sense. There would be no reason to do it (sith are on no-one's mind) and doing it as a senate bill would raise a lot of flags to the Jedi.

And, as Turnip Jedi says, it wouldn't have any effect on the junk bot that coincidentally looks like a factory fresh mass-produced translator droid.

---
New Republic makes some sense, as they'd be paranoid about sith.

So either an ancient tradition or a new paranoia.

My theory is this
A long time ago, when sith where more widely known, in the old republic, when it was m0re known, they passed a lawe preventing droids from translating Sith
Anakin built C3P0, thne when he went on to be owned by Padme, PAdme downloaded a free software crowdsourced of languarges, that included sith

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
My theory is this
A long time ago, when sith where more widely known, in the old republic, when it was m0re known, they passed a lawe preventing droids from translating Sith
Anakin built C3P0, thne when he went on to be owned by Padme, PAdme downloaded a free software crowdsourced of languarges, that included sith

And this is why you should never let other people upgrade your software.

- I agree that C-3PO's software needs to come from some common source that included the ban. Annakin did not himself know the thousands of languages C-3PO can understand and interpret.

What I find interesting is that C-3PO is capable of understanding it himself, just not translating it.

I feel like the company that provided his languages in the first place sent out a free update patch that made him incapable of translating the language. Of course, the software could simply be thousands of years old but they never re-wrote it from scratch, they just kept adding patches.

As for the legislation, this is exactly the sort of unethical thing that everyone can get behind. The Jedi are afriad that their apprentices will learn about the Dark Side, so they favor the bill. The Sith want to be the only ones to have their secrets, so they favor the bill as well. The masses of the republic probably only know the Sith as an ancient boogy-man- so if there's a good old moral panic about Sith secret cults, they'd happily support the bill.

Even more so if the Republic starts using the Dooku's ties to the Dark Side as propaganda- even just as rumours.

Sure, there are going to be a few 'anarchists' in the Republic/Empire that think that information suppression is inherently wrong, but those voices will be quickly overruled by democratic rule.


So I think it is really impossible to tell when the law was written- it could just as easily have been the New Republic trying to rid itself of the vestiges of the Empire as it could have been through Sith manipulation.

I think one of the main points the prequels make is that for a republic to fall, it mostly takes people with good intentions to make some reasonable mistakes.